


the things we have learned

by tigerlo



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, fill in fic, season three missing scenes, there are rather a lot of pairings in this but villaneve is endgame just in case anyone's worried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 51,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27671068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlo/pseuds/tigerlo
Summary: The line on her stomach is a tally mark. They both have one now. How fucking poetic. She wonders if Eve will ever leave another, whether she’ll score another line or carve a perfect number two alongside the first instead.Season three character study/fill-in-fic.Or, Villanelle and Eve lose themselves with other people and find themselves with each other.
Relationships: Anna Leonova/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Hélène/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Maria/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Villanelle | Oksana Astankova/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 75
Kudos: 211





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of notes on the structure of this fic. The first is that it jumps between Eve and Villanelle because I couldn’t decide whose perspective I wanted to write from. I’ve tried to make it pretty clear when it changes to Eve but the default is that it’s from Villanelle’s POV.
> 
> Second, the roman numerals on each part denounce which episode each bit is from (i. = 3x01, ii. = 3x02, etc.) not that it’s really required but it was more for my own use when writing and I rather liked them when it came to editing. 
> 
> Finally, each section has a mini-title because I really struggled with the title of this fic so had an abundance of extras left over that I rather liked but that didn’t feel right for the main one.
> 
> I was also tempted to leave this as one massive fic as I have with my other season-pieces but I rather thought 50k might be a little overwhelming in one go. So they’ll be split into four parts I think, and posted as soon as I can get through and edit all the parts but it’s all written. 
> 
> I’ve been okay at writing this year but dreadful at posting so I’m a little nervous for this to go out into the ether but hopefully it’s readable and enjoyable once you get stuck into it. 
> 
> With that, I shall stop rattling on and say happy reading.
> 
> x

i.

**A dull-edged knife.**

_ Villanelle _

  
  


The arm draped around Villanelle’s waist tightens. “Good morning, my love,” a woman’s voice husks, rough from sleep. 

Villanelle groans in response to the figure behind her, still mostly asleep. “Good morning,” she answers, only when she feels the breath at her ear move and lips press against her neck.

“My mother insisted I stay somewhere else last night, you know,” Maria says to her, letting the warm rush of her exhale move over Villanelle’s skin. 

“Your mother is a spoilsport,” Villanelle scoffs too harshly and without thinking, making the body pressed against her stiffen slightly before she remembers that no, Maria likes her mother, therefore she must play the part if she wants to retain the luxuries available to her at present. “I mean, today is our day, is it not?” she says, turning her voice to honey in order to appease. “And on our day we should do what we want.”

She hates conversation in the morning, it makes her scratchy and irritable, prefers to let sleep leave her slowly when she has the luxury of being between jobs and isn’t moving from place to place on a precise time schedule. To her annoyance, the woman set to be her bride enjoys it. Fortunately, she’s found at least one way to delay conversation, and another to ensure that when it does come, she’s in a slightly better mood to deal with it.

Without hesitation or another word, she guides Maria’s hand down her naked front between her thighs, pressing into the wetness still gathered there from the dream her betrothed had pulled her from. The consummate professional, Villanelle will arch back into this woman’s body in such a neat performance that she won’t question for a second that the dream wasn’t about her, and likely never would be. For now, she is a warm, attractive body, and a well connected and rich one at that. For now, that is enough. 

“We don’t have time, mi amor,” Maria objects verbally, even if she doesn’t move a muscle to protest with any other part of her body. 

“It’s our day,” Villanelle says again, holding her hand over Maria’s as it starts to move, stroking her gently. “Surely we can make time?” She tilts her head back into Maria’s shoulder just far enough for their lips to brush, makes her tone sound needy, weak. “Surely you want me?”

Overall, she’s not displeased with Maria. The seduction had been simple, almost too predictable, almost straightforward enough to make Villanelle lose interest, but that had been captured again easily when she had taken Villanelle back to the extravagant apartment in the centre of the city and held when she had taken Villanelle to bed. Maria was a surprisingly adept lover, adventurous too, not afraid to take risks. Intuitive. Made Villanelle work for it just often enough to keep her interest peaked and voracious when they came together. Almost insatiable enough for her to forget about the person she imagined every time she closed her eyes. Almost, that is. Sufficient. For now. 

_ Do you think about it, too? All of the time.  _

Maria’s hand slips lower, moving easily through growing desire and Villanelle groans loudly with the surprise of it, distracted as she is. She doesn’t bother nor cares to control the volume. The sound of encouragement is seemingly all the other woman needs to abandon any real objection she had seemed intent on arguing a minute ago, and she slides a leg between Villanelle’s, keeping them both on their sides but opening her, giving herself more room to move. 

“My mother is going to kill me,” Maria says as she dips her fingers lower, testing, teasing enough to make Villanelle ache. “They’re already waiting to start getting us ready.” 

“I will kill her first if she interrupts us. And whoever else tries to open that door before we are finished,” Villanelle growls with complete sincerity, ignoring the way Maria laughs with the same tone she uses when she thinks that Villanelle is joking. That used to be funny, her ignorance, but now it is mostly grating, and to a point insulting; Villanelle is dangerous, and Maria is stupidly, infuriatingly blind. 

She wonders again how long before she truly tires of this. Invisibility is so boring, and sometimes Villanelle yearns to be recognised for who and what and how lethal she really is. 

“Be nice,” Maria whispers, taking Villanelle’s ear lobe between her teeth. 

Her accent is smooth, like rich satin. So much better than any jarring American twang, but still not as good as silence. If only she wouldn’t speak at all, that might make it easier to ignore what she doesn’t want and absorb only what she does. Impatient, Villanelle growls and rolls her hips, pushing herself down onto Maria’s fingers in one easy, frictionless motion. She almost expects Maria to move her hand away and make her work for contact but pleasingly, she only gives instead, pushing into Villanelle deeply.

Turning her head, Villanelle ignores the silk of her pillow and sinks her teeth instead into Maria’s forearm that had been laid out under the curve of her neck as they’d slept, gasping with the slight burn between her thighs when swift fingers move faster and more urgently. 

“That’s going to leave a mark,” Maria reprimands, hissing but faultless in her actions despite the burn that must be radiating up her arm. 

High pain tolerance, Villanelle adds to the mental list of reasons to tolerate the behaviour that annoys her. She bites down harder, revels in the moan that follows. Very high pain tolerance.

_ Maybe it will _ , Villanelle thinks as she lets herself fall back into Maria, lets the other woman do the work of supporting her weight as she pushes her towards climax.  _ But it won’t be permanent. It’ll fade in less than a week. It’s not like… _

The figure she has pointedly tried to ignore every second of every day since Villanelle left Rome walks unbidden to her mind when she comes. Eve, Eve, always Eve. Eve, who sunk a knife into her gut like a messy, untrained amateur. Eve, who almost killed her. Eve, whose scar she wears permanently now, whose handprint on her body will never fade. Eve, who didn’t choose her out of fear of her own nature. Eve, who turned her back. Eve, whose face Villanelle has worked so hard to eradicate from her memory these last six months. Eve, who she had to marry to leave behind. Eve, who is really in her bed with her every time she closes her eyes even if she doesn’t actually name it. Eve, who loved her, who  _ loved _ her -  _ we are the same, you’re mine, you are, you’re  _ **_mine_ ** \- but not enough. 

She almost breaks the skin with the point of her teeth in an attempt to swallow Eve’s name back as she tenses around Maria’s fingers, coming again, harder, at the gasped sound of pain in her ear. It’s Eve that she hears cry out, though. Eve, who she imagines has fixed her teeth in Villanelle’s neck in reply with animalistic recklessness. Eve, whose moan she has tried to imagine so many times since they first met but hasn’t ever managed to satisfactorily mimic in her head. 

It’s Eve she hears, who almost cost her everything. Eve, who she shot in Rome and left for dead. Eve, who she couldn’t quite aim at to kill. It’s Eve, not Anna, or Maria, or any of the nameless faceless women she’s taken into her bed. Eve. Eve. Always,  _ always _ , Eve. 

_ Eve _ , she thinks as the last ebbs of her orgasm fade and she recalls the small pinch of a microphone in her ear while she had gasped and clawed for that name again and again.  _ Her _ Eve. Remembers imaging the look of shock swiftly given way to pleasure as Eve had realised what it really was that she was hearing, dreaming of the way Eve’s hand had, after a moment's pause, moved between her own thighs.  _ You should let yourself go once in a while _ . 

She feels Maria still against her, the beat of her heart just there against the tensed muscle of her back, rapid like a hummingbird with her exertion. Would Eve quiet after bringing her to release, or would she be urgent in her greed, would she-

_ No _ , Villanelle snaps to herself. Enough. She pulls forth the memory of some nameless faceless woman turning her back, the flash of gunpowder and then red over green. Enough, she thinks. Enough of the unworthy.  _ Enough _ . 

She growls, sinking into the embrace of the animal in her chest, trying to force that image as far from her as she can, rolling on top of Maria and pinning her against the bed, her hands harsh around the woman’s wrists. The sound manifests as one of hunger that Maria gladly takes to be meant for her. If she were a better person, she would feel guilt for this lie, for this deception, for intruding on a life she has no intention of truly caring for or investing in beyond the superficial, but she isn’t, so she’s not. Maria, stupid, beautiful Maria arches her back, breasts pushing against Villanelle’s before she lowers her head and takes the swell of one into her mouth, almost purring when Maria cries out with the distinct mixture of pleasure and pain. 

Try as she might, it still isn’t the woman she’ll marry in a few hours below her when she finishes, who’s desire she tastes on the fingers she sucks clean. It’s Eve. Who, even dead in the ruins of an empire so long gone nothing but dust remains she cannot kill. It’s the figure who refuses to remain nameless, the traitor who almost killed her, the nobody who changed everything. It’s Eve. Always Eve. Only Eve. Eve, finally silent and buried in some drab London cemetery,  _ her  _ Eve who keeps coming back. 

  
  
  


.

  
  


ii.

(part one)

**An absence of grief.**

_ Villanelle _

  
  


Villanelle drops the wet towel at the foot of the bed, not bothering to tie up her still-damp hair before crawling into the sinfully soft sheets calling for her. She sprawls out across the mattress, sighing at the sensation of them against her bare skin, feeling her skin pebble at their richness despite the warm night air floating in softly through the still open windows. 

The cold shower hadn’t helped draw her any closer to reality and Konstantin’s voice still rings in her head over and over and over again even as she closes her eyes and the ornate ceiling turns to black. 

_ Eve, she is alive _ . Alive?  _ She is alive _ . No.  _ Villanelle, can you hear me. _ No, she can’t be.  _ Villanelle _ . No.  _ Villanelle _ . I shot her.  _ She’s alive. _ She’s dead.  _ She’s alive.  _ She’s dead, she’s dead, she has to be. 

The room she cannot see spins around her and the tingling in the pit of her stomach turns warm and starts to move lower, down between her thighs. She’s angry at her own reaction, or maybe not angry but frustrated. She shouldn’t be surprised, she’s not a person who gets surprised, but then Eve was always the exception to that in the past so it makes sense that she’s the thing to defy that rule now. 

Deep, deep down Villanelle still doesn’t know whether she shot to kill or not. Her aim is perfect, after all; especially at close range, and yet… Perhaps it wasn’t so much a shot missed but something intended to do greater damage than one would if it were instantly fatal. She had wanted so badly to  _ hurt _ Eve, to make her heart scream and cry, to make her writhe in pain like the denial had done to her. Perhaps she had wanted to test Eve, to see whether she was strong enough, whether she was worthy. Maybe she had wanted to leave her mark on Eve the same way that Eve had left one on her, a piece of herself on Eve’s flesh, a trace of herself in Eve’s blood. 

Maybe some part of her knew that Eve was alive, even before mistaking Dasha for her, the part of her that wasn’t fully closed like a neatly stitched wound, that ached like a poorly-set broken bone. Maybe it manifested in that feeling she hadn’t been able to quantify until Konstantin had confirmed the thing that her - her what, her soul? She laughs. That’s ridiculous. Her intuition? No, she thinks, opening her eyes, that’s not quite right either. It had felt deeper than that, embedded in her gut like the point of Eve’s knife.  _ Instinct _ . Yes, she thinks as her hand absentmindedly moves over her stomach.  _ Instinct. More primal and less conscious. More dangerous. Yes,  _ she thinks _. That was it. _

The flash of a figure out of place crosses her mind, the sensation of a second of elation before she had realised that it was a ghost of her past, and not a ghost from her present. She would have tackled Eve if she’d interrupted the wedding too on principle if nothing else, but she might have kissed her before she curled her hand into a fist and swung. She might have taken advantage of having Eve pinned beneath her finally, hot and angry and completely at her mercy. She might have done the thing that she knows Eve wants as much as she does, the thing that left unresolved had kept her, both of them actually, from death. 

And Eve does want it, even if she will not admit it to Villanelle or herself or anyone else. Villanelle knows this. Has always known this. Eve’s jealousy at seeing the two women leave her London flat had been unmistakable. More interesting than the initial reaction though had been that her words of affirmation, an attempt to soothe that jealousy, had changed something in Eve’s eyes. From outright anger to conflict, but internalised conflict, almost confusion. It had been jealousy whether Eve was ready to admit it to herself then or not. 

The thought makes her wonder what Eve would think about Maria. Would she feign nonchalance? Would she be surprised? Shocked? Furious? She hopes the reality will be a volatile mix of everything. It would be good, she thinks, for Eve to understand what it feels like to want someone that one step more unattainable. It is a fitting sentence for the pain that Villanelle has had to endure watching her cling to that pathetically dull excuse of a partner for so long; for not realising sooner how glorious a release she could be in comparison. 

The finiteness of her statement makes her realise that she is already assuming a reunion. The fact that she has no idea where Eve might currently be is irrelevant. If Eve is alive, it is inevitable. She doesn’t make these rules, they just  _ are _ . That thought leads her to another, more frustrating; if Eve was alive, why hadn’t she come looking for her yet? Six months is a long time and she hadn’t bothered to keep herself hidden, not once she’d fallen back into the impermeable barrier of protection that The Twelve granted her if she wanted it. 

She doesn’t know if she’s more furious or upset that Eve hasn’t come for her. Maybe it’s a challenge. Maybe she’s waiting for Villanelle to come back and claim what is hers. Maybe this is all a test just as much as hers was. 

Eve will be angry at her, she knows this, even if it’s all just bravado to begin with. Eve wants to be found, or else she would have done a better job of hiding, she would have gone into protection which admittedly wouldn’t have stopped Villanelle finding her, but it would have slowed her down. For some reason, Eve hadn’t even bothered to do that, she’d made herself so obvious that even Konstantin had been able to find her. 

How had he found her? And why? It’s not simple curiosity, that’s for certain. Konstantin doesn’t care about Eve. He cares about himself, and sometimes he cares about Villanelle but he certainly doesn’t care about Eve. Carolyn cares about Eve, no Carolyn cares about what Eve can do for her, and Carolyn might be distantly interested in what Villanelle can do for her by proxy but she doesn’t care about anything else. Neither of them cares enough to reveal this information to her out of the good of their cold, black hearts. No, there can only be something in this revelation for them. 

They think they’re clever in their manipulations, Carolyn and Konstantin but they’re as obvious as the way Eve’s eyes follow her around a room with far more than a distant wariness. Normally, this would be beneath her, not worth her time to care even a small amount but there’s a taste to this manipulation that she doesn’t like, a bitterness to it that feels more volatile than usual, more dangerous, almost like they’re not certain of what the end state looks like in spite of their bullish movement forward, and that Villanelle finds troubling. She’s far more likely to be dispensable if their would-be handlers don’t know what they’re playing for, both she and Eve, and that, she doesn’t like at all. 

Yes, Villanelle thinks to herself. There’s a reason for Konstantin coming here, there’s a reason he chose to share that piece of information with her, and it certainly isn’t altruistic in nature. It must serve a purpose for them, a part of their long game; she’s just not sure exactly what that is yet. In a sense, while she doesn’t particularly like being in the dark, she supposes that it doesn’t really matter in the end because there are some pieces on the chessboard that are set and concrete, completely unchangeable, no matter what happens or gets caught in the crossfire. One: when the stakes  _ are _ high, Konstantin doesn’t really care about her, two: Carolyn doesn’t really care about Eve and, three: she doesn’t really care about any of it beyond herself… and maybe Eve. 

When the smoke and dust clears, as far as she’s concerned she doesn’t care who is playing who as long as she can take what she wants, which she will, just as soon as she decides exactly what that is. If the other players don’t know what they’re taking away from the bloodshed, fine, what does it matter to her, but woe anyone who stands in the way of what is hers. 

God, it would have been so much simpler if Eve had stayed gone. She runs her hands over her stomach.  _ So much easier _ . Pulls in a sharp breath when her fingers brush over the scar on her navel.  _ So much more devastatingly boring too. _ Her hands move lower, spreading herself as she lets her touch wander, imagines guiding Eve’s hand, keen but hesitant, hesitant but impatient and the ache that had started as a pinprick when she pulled the trigger but grew into a chasm when she heard the soft thud of a body hitting the ground she suddenly notices seems subdued somewhat. Satiated. A monster, placated by whatever it’s just been fed. 

Elation swells in her gut and she becomes greedy in her exhale, greedy in the movements of her hands. Desire crests because, yes, shooting Eve was a test. Shooting Eve was a way to see whether she was strong enough to be worthy, whether she was strong enough to stand by Villanelle’s side. Shooting Eve was a way for Eve to show her that she could do this, that she wanted this, that she wanted Villanelle enough to survive a gunshot wound. 

Shooting Eve was a kiss of life and a brush of death all at the same time. A gift. Freeing.  _ Yes _ , she gasps as she sinks lower.  _ Yes, Eve,  _ she thinks as she welcomes the ghost back into her presence finally. 

“You forced me,” Eve says watching her from across the room, arms folded in contempt over her chest and not quite fully obscuring the patch of red from the exit wound that Villanelle imagines exists just below her ribs. 

“No, I helped you,” Villanelle corrects her, noticing that even this Eve cannot keep her eyes off of her as her hand works between her own thighs.

Ghost-Eve scoffs rudely. “Really? What’s the difference?” 

“There’s all the difference in the world, Eve,” Villanelle says, closing everything out again, letting only the vision of Eve wash over her before she comes and Eve’s ghost leaves with the rolling throb of pleasure. “And you know it.”

She is alive. The fact repeats in her head over and over again as she pushes herself towards a second finish. She is alive. She is _alive_ , Villanelle realises with an intensity so foreign and overwhelming that she forgets to breathe as she closes around her own fingers, _and_ _so am I._

  
  
  


.

ii.

(part two)

**Who we are to other people.**

_ Villanelle _

  
  


“Villanelle, I know you can hear me.” Konstantin’s voice sounds tinny over the secure line, and Villanelle doesn’t know if her first thought is annoyance or anger. She’s also not sure whether it’s directed at the voice on the other end of the line or someone else. 

It’s been two days since she saw him in person and two days since she learned the truth of Eve’s apparent avoidance of death. It’s also been two days since she allowed that name to take its place inside her head again, two days since Eve stopped being a void she was trying to ignore and shifted, flowered back into something beautiful. Two days since nothing turned into a drive, no, a hot oil fire in her gut, a want, a hunger to see Eve again. It’s been two days that she’s been richer for the information but it’s been six months since she saw her last, six months since Rome and the ruins and a turned back and that pathetic little gun and a beautiful, bold pool of blood. 

She readjusts the phone on her shoulder, holding it to her ear and balancing on one foot as she steps into a new pair of formal slacks she’d picked up on the way home from the job today. The fabric is rich, light, and she savours the way it feels against the smoothness of her legs. 

The steam from the bathroom and the recently shut off shower swirls around her head so she pads barefoot across the marble tiles to push the window open a crack, watching as it all rushes out into the fresh air. She has a beautiful view from up here, the outlook full of sounds that she normally welcomes to break the monotony of her own thoughts. Today though the bustling noise of the ancient city so alive only annoys her so she slams the window shut after a few seconds, pushing the bathroom door open instead. 

“Who is this again?” she says airly, feigning ignorance, smirking with satisfaction when she hears Konstantin sigh in frustration on the other end. 

“Villanelle, I don’t have time for games,” he says impatiently. In his background, she can hear invasive noise; a dog barking perhaps, or a child crying. 

“Is your family waiting for you?” she asks, sickly sweet, her lip curling at the end of the question. 

“Fine,” he says bluntly. “You don’t want my help, fine. Enjoy Barcelona.” 

She groans like a petulant child threatened with an early night, the sound more animalistic, like a grow when it ends. “Fine,” she echoes back at him. “I’m listening.”

Konstantin is silent for a moment on the other end of the phone and she abandons her task of trying to do up her bra one-handed to check the call hasn’t been disconnected. He’s still there, she notes to her annoyance, he’s just being difficult. It makes her jaw tighten; she hates waiting, and he knows it, just like she hates him for knowing she won’t just hang up, that the information he has for her is too valuable to dismiss or ignore out of hand. She can almost hear him thinking too, chastising himself for giving in to the weakness of his affection for her but still reluctant to cut the tie completely. Anger, she can’t be bothered with. Anger is useless, weak, unless you do something with it. Everyone is angry these days, he doesn’t get special treatment just because he’s angry with her, and he gets less respect because he can’t even use it properly. That weakness though, that reluctance, the absence of ruthlessness she can play on to her advantage. 

“Konstantin,” she whines, verbalising her sad pout. 

“Why do you make it hard for me, hmm?” he asks her. “I am trying to help you.”

“I’m lonely,” she replies, pressing him for empathy. “Everyone left me. You left me. You know I can be difficult when I feel like no one loves me.”

She can hear him biting his tongue over the reply he almost spills,  _ you are alone because you killed everyone who once loved you,  _ because he might be angry with her, he might be on the opposite side of the world, but he’s not stupid enough to push her to a place like that. She found his family once, and she’ll do it again if needs must. No, she thinks with a smug grin, he won’t push that far because as much as he loves his family, he loves the life he has riding her coattails more; she imagines the mundanity of happy family life is driving him crazy already, or else he would have run, severed their ties and left her for whoever wanted her head most. 

_ Don’t forget, the only thing that makes you interesting is me.  _ She had said that to Eve once, but as much is true for Konstantin too. He has the contacts, he has the relationships sewn deep into otherwise impenetrable organisations but  _ she _ is the asset, she holds the key to their value while he is nothing without her and deep down he knows that. 

“I am sorry for leaving you,” he says with patience that’s only slightly forced to her trained ear. “You know that I care about you. Why else would I come back for you? Why else would I have made arrangements for you now?”

“If you love me then you will come back and see me again,” she says both presumptively and assertively. 

“Soon,” he replies, placating her. Forgetting her. 

“No. Not soon, like you will watch a movie with me, soon,” she says, clicking her tongue in reprimand. “Come and see me soon, or I will have to come and see you.”

There’s a pause on the other line as he realises his mistake. “Villanelle,” he says, trying to neutralise the obvious threat. 

“Konstantin,” she parrots back to him in an almost perfect impersonation of his own voice. “I know Irina would love to see me. We had a lot of fun last time. I am such an exciting older sister.”

“I will come to you,” he says with careful haste to his voice that she sees right through. Not too quick, or she’ll pounce on the fact that he doesn’t want her to come to him. Not too slow or she’ll bite at the insinuation that he doesn’t really care. 

“You’ll do it soon, yes?” she asks. “I’m bored here, without anyone to play with. The jobs aren’t exciting enough, too easy. You know it’s not good when I am bored.”

“Okay,” he says, giving in. “Okay, fine. I will come soon and you will stop telling me that I do not put you first.”

“Very good,” she says, business-like, as though they were sitting across a desk talking over financial reports and not what they are truly discussing. “Now, tell me what you phoned to tell me. Do you know where she is yet?”

“Villanelle,” he says before stalling. “I-“

“That is a yes,” Villanelle finishes for him bluntly, tired of his hesitation. “Is she still in London?”

Konstantin sighs warily. “Yes,” he says carefully. “She is alive, but I want to tell me what you are going to do. It isn’t safe for you to try and shoot her again, they’re watching her too carefully now but-“

“I can be very subtle,” Villanelle snorts arrogantly. “But I don’t think I want to shoot her again. I think once is enough to get my message through, don’t you?”

She can see the hesitation in his face even through the phone line, and it doesn’t take much to guess what it is that he’s thinking. So many things should have been enough to get a message through to Eve, and yet they hadn’t. Stabbing her best friend, coming to her home, twice, threatening her husband, showing her how deadly she really was, how little power Eve had in comparison. So many warnings, so many messages, most of them the complete opposite of subtle, and yet…

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to tell you where she is,” Konstantin says on the other end of the connection. “Not for her. I don’t think it is good for you.”

“You will tell me because I will find out anyway,” Villanelle says dryly. “And I will be very angry if you make me look for it.”

He groans in that way that he saves for when he is frustrated, but not dangerously so. When he knows she is being difficult and he isn’t happy but he knows the argument isn’t worth fighting. “Do you promise that you will be careful?” Konstantin asks of her. “I don’t know that Carolyn will give you up if they catch you, not after Rome.” 

“I am always careful,” she says, because she is, she’s just confident in her ability too. She’s always careful; she always takes exactly the risks she wants to. 

“Villanelle-“

“Konstantin,” she parrots, condescendingly. 

“I mean it,” he says, more stern than before. “You don’t know how Eve will react. It might all be a trap. That might be why she was so easy to find.”

Her fingers find the knotted scar on her stomach absently. It might well be a trap. Eve might kill her, but she doesn’t think she would mind that, not if she takes Eve with her; they’ll die together, the way she feels it was always meant to happen. They’re inextricably tied together. She knows it, Eve knows it, Konstantin and Carolyn know it, the ground beneath their feet and the rich marrow in their bones know it too. She’s always wondered what the point to all this was, the surviving and the living and the fighting and the constant waging war with ever-changing victors and now, finally, she knows. 

Of course, it is, of  _ course _ . Eve. Everything comes back to Eve. Eve, who was her test, Eve, who found her, Eve, who almost killed her, who taught her that love was the hard edge of a knife and infection and pain, so much pain. Eve, who taught her that love was complicated. Eve, who taught her that love, while fragile, was not so easy a thing to kill.

“I am late for something,” Villanelle tells Konstantin instead of replying to his last statement, setting the phone to speaker and placing it down so she can slide the straps of her bra over her arms and fix the catch behind her back. “You will send me her address,” she says, watching her reflection in the large mirror. “And then I will decide what I am going to do.”

It’s still very much an option to just kill Eve, to sever the link and let the obsession die with her but she doesn’t think she will, not when this, their back and forth, their  _ romance _ is so rich and tempting and fun, not when she knows how boring life is without her. Besides, she thinks to herself, they haven’t even fucked yet, and she wants to do that, to feel Eve writhing and sobbing for  _ more, more, more _ , before they die in each other’s arms, the hilt of the knife buried in each of their backs still quivering as their final breath leaves them at exactly the same time. 

The woman she is meeting tonight looks more like Anna than Eve, only a bit skinnier than Anna was, which isn’t something she enjoys. She likes a woman’s body as it was made to be, soft curves to knead under her palms and not the harder edges of bone. It’s so much more satisfying to watch flesh flow and dip around her fingers when she curls her hands around hips or thighs or wrists. But, she thinks ruefully, needs must. She hasn’t had anyone satisfying in her bed since Maria and something about this woman, the way her eye had caught Villanelle’s as she had run her tongue around the cone of gelato in her hand across the piazza told her that she might just be the right person to break that little drought. 

It should have been Eve she was dressing up for; all of this should have been for Eve, but she had made the cowards choice and turned her back and paid the price. She had put distance between them. For now, anyway. One day, she thinks as she leans closer to the mirror to smooth moisturiser over her face and down her neck, one day this will be for Eve, but not today. 

“Villanelle,” Konstantin says, his voice sounding odd, almost reconciliatory.

“Mmm,” she grunts, lips parted as she applies her mascara. 

There’s a pregnant pause like Konstantin is trying to choose which of his warnings to give her; be careful, be discreet, choose this woman over her, over Eve, and make all their lives simpler for it, but in the end, he settles on none of them. She can hear more of the noise in the background of his call, someone talking now. She commits the sound of it quickly to memory in the event that she needs it to find him at some later date. 

“I will send you the address, and my arrival time,” he says finally, something like defeat between his words. 

“Don’t forget your flight details,” she says brightly, combing her hair back into a sleek high ponytail once she’s satisfied with her makeup. He won’t get away from her knowing where he has come from at the very least, even if that’s not his original point of departure. “I will meet you at the airport,” she tells him. “There are so many places I have been dying to show you, so many things I want you to buy to make up for those awful shirts with the writing on the sleeves.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, tapping the  _ end call _ button and severing their conversation on her terms before she considers the reflection looking back at her. Eve’s scar throbs of its own accord when her eyes find it, almost like Eve left some of herself in there, pushed deep with the tip of the knife. She places her fingers over it then shifts the heel of her palm to it, pressing hard in an attempt to shut the buzz of Eve’s voice out of her head and the feeling of her hair and the sound of her stilted breathing away. For now. 

She will think of Eve when she wants it, and not when Eve, or the ghost of her violent admission, or denial, of love wants to make an appearance. It will be on her terms,  _ her _ terms or not at all. 

The last of the sun is fading when she walks back into her bedroom from the en-suite, the glow of it filling the room through the large windows that dominate a whole wall. She walks over to the wardrobe on the other side of the room to look for the shirt she had bought for this evening, oversized and white, stiff with a wide cuff at the wrists. Picking up a watch she checks the time as she slides it over her hand and fastens the clasp, noting it’s almost five. Her date should have been down at the bar across the street for a few minutes now, not long enough for her to consider leaving but long enough that she will be relieved when Villanelle, or Diana, as she has named herself tonight, does turn up. 

Her phone makes a noise against the marble sink in her bathroom and she pads over, still in bare feet, to collect it and look at the screen while she moves back to the wardrobe to slide her feet into a pair of heels. 

A message is from an unknown number and is full of seemingly random letters and numbers that she has to shift and rearrange in her head before she can make sense of them. This is Konstantin’s stupid little habit, his way of maintaining privacy and preventing the discovery of messages on the phones she loses or leaves in other people’s hotel rooms by accident, sending messages in a crypt hand that he made her design for them years ago as a test of her intelligence when she was still skinny and weak and recovering from prison. 

From Japan, she ascertains that his flight will arrive, three days from tomorrow. More important than that though is what the message tells her of where Eve is still now, licking her wounds and pretending she doesn’t want to be found. The address is right in the middle of central London, not far from one of the places they had met Carolyn before leaving for Rome. Smart, Villanelle thinks, to have her hidden somewhere in such plain sight, or maybe incredibly stupid, she hasn’t decided yet. 

Even if they don’t have physical surveillance on-site, at the very least they’ll have CCTV or some other kind of visual security in place. She knows that she won’t just be able to walk through the front door or sneak in through a window, they’ll be expecting someone her height and build no matter the colour of her hair or eyes; no matter what she is wearing. She’ll have to find another way in, something more obvious, less discreet and therefore not predictable. 

_ Get me a key _ , she texts back in plain English, ignoring Konstantin’s pedantic insistence on security. The only person who might be able to find her based on the contents of this phone is the very person she wants to details of. If she’s still on the unofficial payroll and has access to the same kind of tracking skills as before of course. Although, Villanelle smiles to herself, she suspects that Eve would find a way around that too if that was necessary. 

The thought makes her contemplative and ignoring the time and her date, she opens her arms, beckons the ghost in and wonders what Eve is doing right now, this very moment. Has Eve thought of her at all today, or has Villanelle been in her head the whole time since their parting, her presence dominant, never ceasing, never leaving. She doesn’t bother thinking about the alternative because she knows if Eve’s ghost is this intrusive, hers in Eve’s head paired with her still-healing wound will be much, much more insistent. 

_ And her number _ , she texts in follow up. She’ll debate the merit of whether to send Eve a message just to taunt or tease or whether it’s better to surprise her as she walks down to the bar. 

It might be fun, to give Eve something to ponder over while she makes her way back to London, but she doesn’t want to set off any kind of alarm prematurely. She wants Eve to be happy to see her, relieved, even if that happiness is shrouded in some kind of purely-for-appearances hatred. She knows that Eve won’t ever truly hate her, she can’t; they’re tied together now, like the same star branded for destruction, inexplicably linked, both now marked with the love of the other like some deeply set kiss. She wonders if Eve touches her scar fondly yet, or whether she’s still too angry. She wonders whether the pain she feels in her stomach occasionally is the ghost of Eve’s touch over her own, the sensation, the connection married between them through the healing pink skin. 

Maybe she’ll send a letter instead. Anna always used to like her letters, even if she frowned and reprimanded her for sending them to the house where her husband might come across them. It makes her think for the first time of the postcard she’d sent from Amsterdam and the fact that Eve hadn’t mentioned it once during their time together. Was she being stubborn, refusing to acknowledge it, or had it failed to actually reach her altogether. It hasn’t occurred to her before now that Eve’s mail was of enough consequence to be monitored but perhaps it was, maybe Eve hadn’t received it at all. 

Her fingers curl and her lip twitches at the thought but she pushes the anger to one side for now; she’ll deal with that when she gets back to England if she needs to. If Carolyn or any other sticky-handed part of her troop has it, if she had intercepted it before it made its way to Eve then that’s something she would far rather have the pleasure of addressing in person. 

  
  


.

  
  


The warm evening air rushes over her skin like the heat from an opened oven door as she takes a step onto the cobbled street, the viscous heat of the day having mellowed to a pleasant glow. She looks across the road, catching sight of a figure with long black hair already sitting at a table outside waiting. 

This initial rush of anticipation, of expectation ahead of engaging with a potential lover has always been one of the few things capable of disrupting the mundanity of her days. Her heart skips in her throat and her jaw aches and her palms buzz with excitement and for a moment she is back, standing at the foot of Anna’s bed, her gaze hungry as she watches her undress for the first time. Anna, who is gone but whose memory will never leave her; Anna whose ghost filled her days with something as her mind rebelled against the complete lack of stimulation in prison, Anna, who Oksana, and then later when she was reborn Villanelle, could not strip out even though the mind-numbing sentence was her fault. Anna, who is so very different from Eve and yet so similar too, cemented into her mind with a root she hasn’t yet been able to wrench free. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Talia,” Villanelle gushes when she reaches the figure waiting for her. She slides her hand along the woman’s shoulder in an assumed familiarity, smiling to herself when she catches the unmistakable blush that follows. 

She leans in, pressing a kiss to the woman's cheek but very near the corner of her lips, thrilled when the blush deepens. 

“Oh, no, you’re perfectly fine,” the woman says with just a hint of an Eastern European, or maybe Iranian, accent hidden beneath the otherwise pan-English sound of her voice. She exhales almost shakily, turning and looking at Villanelle properly for the first time. “Gosh,” she says breathlessly, “you look…” 

“Like I rushed, I’m sure,” Villanelle says with fake modesty, touching her hair in a way that looks appropriately self-conscious. 

The woman is prettier than Anna and Eve, even if she is a little thinner, probably early forties with a hunger in her eyes that surprises and impresses Villanelle as she looks over her body unashamedly. A woman who knows what she wants, Villanelle thinks.  _ Good _ . They’re always the most fun to break. 

“Not one part of you looks rushed,” the woman tells her with a coy smile. “You look better than I do and I think I spent two hours trying to decide on what to wear.”

“I’m sure you would look good in anything,” Villanelle tells her flatteringly, the compliment genuine and smooth. 

She’s a better dresser than Eve and Anna, her clothes finer, more expensive; she can tell that with nothing more than a quick touch of the fabric. W who takes pride in how she looks too, unlike Anna and Eve who were such frustratingly utilitarian dressers. They both had the form for it, but chose to dress like bored housewives instead of the woman in front of her. Unashamedly elegant. Refined. 

Villanelle allows her hand to linger on the woman’s shoulder, playing subtly with the fabric of the rich shawl thrown over her sundress for warmth. She allows her eyes to linger too on the sliver of skin exposed. They follow a line down the middle of the woman’s chest, her cleavage and the bare skin of her shoulders on display around the thin straps of her dress. She doesn’t bother to hide where she’s looking and the woman, to her pleasure, uncrosses her arms under the guise of gesturing to the seat opposite her in order to grant her a better view. 

She doesn’t know a great deal about this woman beyond her obvious financial means and the few clues that her physical appearance divulges. Divorced, if the faded but now-faint line on her ring finger is anything to go by, but freer for that rather than in any kind of mourning state. The money at her disposal is definitely hers and not an ex-partner’s, Villanelle deduces. That much is evident in the way she carries herself, the high line of her jaw and the air of silent authority that surrounds her, the way she seems to have been given the best table here despite being the smallest party. A born wealth, then, Villanelle decides. Family money that brought her to Barcelona often too, by the non-English version of the menu in front of her.

The confidence that comes with money positively flows off the woman but there’s something else too, a lack of arrogance that normally follows wealth. Bourgeoisian entitlement is something that Villanelle so enjoys breaking when she’s in the right mood, but she’s not tonight. No, she thinks to herself as she watches Talia; tonight, she wants supplication. Tonight, she wants submission. 

“I was going to suggest something,” Villanelle says as though rising from deep contemplation. “We could have a drink here, or…” She allows the word to drag between them, the tension to stretch. “Or, we could go back to my apartment and have a drink there? It isn’t far, and it’s quieter. I have a good vintage I left breathing for myself later, but I’d be happy to share it, if you were interested.” 

A flicker of something like surprise crosses the woman’s face. She doesn’t answer right away, instead glancing around them, as though checking the position of the sun in the sky, checking for some sign from the light that this isn’t too soon an admission of what… defeat? An admission of desire? Of something a little darker? Anticipation of what she can sense that Villanelle is capable of, perhaps. 

The woman tilts her head, licks her lips as she finds Villanelle’s eyes and her fingers brush against the warm hand on the back of her chair. 

She can tell from the way the woman’s breathing catches that her decision is made, that tonight is going to be fun.  _ Yes _ , Villanelle thinks, pointedly ignoring the image of Eve that tries to settle in a seat at the table across from them. It’s going to be satisfying in the way a deep ache in used muscles is, where the pain the next day feels  _ earned _ . 

“I’d like that,” the woman says finally, holding Villanelle’s attention as she reaches for her wine glass, draining the last drop before she pushes away from the table without another word. 

Villanelle holds her hand out chivalrously, smirking when the woman’s hand slips into hers, her palm soft and smooth and perfectly temperate. “I’d like that too,” Villanelle tells her, slipping a banknote out of her pocket and under the rim of the wine glass before the woman can reach for her wallet. 

She looks like she’s considering arguing but decides it’s just a waste of time, asking Villanelle a question instead as she tucks her clutch neatly under her arm. “Lead the way?”

With a melodic thumping of her heart, Villanelle leads the woman through the labyrinth of tables with a hand pressed to the small of her back. The gesture, obviously sexual, catches the attention of a few bystanders and she smiles sweetly at the older couple who look at them disapprovingly, allowing her hand to hover slightly lower, just enough for the man to shake his head and let out a rude sigh. 

She allows her mind to play a little scenario out for her to save acting on the flash of indignation and rebellion pounding in her chest, of pulling the woman to her in full sight of the restaurant, kissing her deeply, allowing her hands to move over the curves of her body. The quick fantasy expands and Villanelle imagines absorbing every dip and rise of flesh, biting hard down on the skin of her throat before releasing her suddenly and striding over to the man’s table as he rises to meet her, exclaiming in outrage before she picks up the knife next to his hand and pins it to the table with a quick, heavy  _ thump _ . 

The breathless cry washes over her followed by the scream of his insipid looking wife and the warmth of the blood on her palm. She imagines revelling in the utter silence as she walks back over to the woman, sliding her arm casually around her shoulders and walking her calmly and slowly back to her apartment. She imagines fucking the rest of her frustration into exhaustion, imagines the heady gasps and moans and pleas of the woman beneath her, the sighs of satisfaction when she pushes her to the very edge of sanity, the thrusts of her hips hard and unforgiving, proof of the unassuming strength at her disposal. 

It’s beyond tempting to follow through on each of the imagined actions, to look deep into his eyes as fear and surprise fills them and his knees fail him. It would be satisfying, there’s no doubt of that, but the departure from here wouldn’t be calm, it would be full of screams and sirens and frankly, she can’t be bothered with any of it tonight. Why would she choose that mess when she has a perfectly beautiful woman who is definitely not Eve Polastri to ruin instead. No, she decides; while fun, that all feels far too much like hard work. The rest of her little daydream however, the moans and cries of a different kind; that is hard work she will deliver gladly. 

Instead of driving the knife with the full force of her arm down through flesh and bone and muscle into the wood of the table, she gives them an artificially broad smile instead, teeth too white, the points too sharp to be anything but threatening. Memorising the picture of their faces at the same time, Villanelle decides that if she never sees them again, fine; but if she does they had better pray there are more than a few witnesses around to force her behaviour into something less violent than what she has her mind set on. 

They pass across the piazza back to Villanelle’s apartment with an unspoken swiftness, the desire lifting their feet and propelling them along without much care for anything around them. Villanelle leads them in through the gates of the complex, not even bothering to look around for the presence of anyone else when she gestures towards her front door. 

“This is a very beautiful apartment,” the woman says, walking ahead of Villanelle, looking around with genuine appreciation. “How long have you been here for?”

“Not long, but I understand that it’s been at the disposal of my family for a very long time,” Villanelle lies easily. 

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” the woman says, looking over her shoulder to Villanelle with a solemn expression on her face. “Having families like that, I mean. So many obligations. So little freedom.”

_ Freedom _ , Villanelle laughs to herself sharply _. What would you know about freedom? What could you know about being a tiger in a cage with a hundred arrows pointed at you, and a hundred more waiting to take their turn.  _

“Are you free now?” Villanelle asks her instead. 

There’s a swift intelligence in the woman’s eye that catches Villanelle’s attention in a different way than it had before. The invisible scars that are easily obscured to the untrained eye start to appear like invisible ink on the woman’s skin when Villanelle looks just a little harder and recognises the spark for what it truly is. Damage. An abusive relationship perhaps. One she was forced into and one she fought her way out of. 

“Are any of us ever?” the woman replies with a cynical shrug. 

Villanelle thinks of the cage. Of the starved, emancipated, pacing feline.  _ Yes _ , she wants to say. When everyone holding your leash is dead, or you yourself are.  _ Idiot _ , another voice mocks. Even death doesn’t make you free. Something about the statement gets under Villanelle’s skin, itching and burning until she frees it with the sharp point of her teeth, biting her own lip almost to the point of piercing the skin. She thinks of the smell of fresh blood. She thinks of the tiger. 

“Freedom can be a lot of things, I think,” Villanelle says, imagining the warmth on her hands the second before a room from her past fills with Anna’s screams, thinks of turning her back on a gunshot and tasting copper and ancient dust on her tongue. “Freedom can be stealing something, money, a future that someone had no right to take from you in the first place,” she steps in close to the woman, runs a thumb along the line of her jaw. “Tasting something that belongs to someone else.”

“I don’t belong to anyone but myself now,” Talia says, catching Villanelle’s hand when she lowers it from her cheek. The gleam in her eye is confident, something worn by one who is stronger than their scars, a tiger licking blood off its teeth. 

“Neither do I,” Villanelle lies. She watches the woman turn her hand over with interest. Observes the way she traces Villanelle’s lifeline with her index finger.  _ That’s what you think, _ she says in her head.  _ Everyone belongs to someone. Especially when you think you’re free _ .

“Have you lived many lives?” the woman asks with just a hint too much perceptiveness for Villanelle’s liking. Intent, she continues, doesn’t notice the way Villanelle suppresses the urge to snatch her hand away. “This line is split,” she offers, frowning. “But in many ways, not just forked. It’s not very common, you know.” 

_ You have no idea _ , Villanelle says to herself, suppressing her irritation. “It feels like it sometimes,” she says out loud. Turning to the kitchen, she shifts the direction of the conversation, uneasy with the depth of Talia’s inquisition. “Would you like a drink?” 

The serious expression worn by the other woman breaks into a smooth half-smile and she nods before following Villanelle through the apartment and into the other room. She watches Villanelle gather a couple of glasses, leaning casually against the kitchen counter with an ease that’s surprisingly attractive. 

Villanelle doesn’t even begrudge the way she waits for the glass of wine to come to her rather than coming towards it. It lacks the entitlement that would make Villanelle’s smile prick falsely, her posture full of something like temptation, or anticipation instead. 

“What made you come over and introduce yourself to me last night?” the woman asks when her fingers wrap around the wine glass and brush against Villanelle’s. It’s not a challenging expression on her face when Villanelle meets her gaze, but it is searching. Something that one bitten too many times might do. 

“You reminded me of someone,” Villanelle tells her, the honesty rising to the surface with an ease that almost takes her by surprise. 

“A good someone?” Talia raises an eyebrow in question. 

Villanelle laughs softly, the sound emanating from deep between her ribs. “A very good someone.”

“Who was she?” the woman asks after taking a sip of wine and humming in approval at its richness. 

Villanelle smiles, remembering the feel of Anna’s hair between her fingers and not the way she had screamed and screamed and screamed. “The first woman I loved,” she tells the woman. 

That peaks some kind of interest and the woman's expression changes at Villanelle’s omission. “Where is she now?”

“Dead,” Villanelle replies plainly. She really had expected to feel something when she had looked on Anna’s lifeless body but there hadn’t been anything, just a yawning void and a regretful observance of her hair red run through black and a voice in her head saying,  _ what a shame she hadn’t angled lower,  _ her memory savoured in prison hadn’t done the reality of her justice. Her hair really was beautiful. 

The comment seems to pain this evenings’ companion more than it had Villanelle. “I’m sorry,” Talia tells her with a troubled frown. 

Villanelle makes a noise that might come across as a muffled sigh of pain but is only resolution. Everyone must die, after all.

She hasn’t put a good deal of thought into the difference between Anna’s death and what she thought had been Eve’s until now, but now the realisation is there it’s impossible to fully ignore the differences. 

Is this what it feels like to mourn someone, she wonders suddenly, putting the heel of her palm to her chest discreetly, massaging out the ache that has turned into a hot throb since Konstantin left with his revelation heavy in the air. Is this what it should have felt like with Anna. Before the woman can take her contemplation for anything more than it is, she leaves Anna’s ghost and the part of Eve that she did kill that night to their infighting, stepping towards 

“What about you?” Villanelle asks her directly, the heat of her question calling a blush over the other woman’s cheeks. “Who do I remind you of?” 

The woman smirks, nonplussed by her own reaction. She lifts the glass to her lips and holds it there as though the action might give her something to hide behind. “Why do you think you remind me of anyone at all?”

“Intuition,” Villanelle shrugs confidently. She hadn’t actually known at all, but she’s pleased with the response her guess has garnered. “Well?” she presses. 

Talia contemplates her response for a moment before answering. “I had an affair while I was still married. It was a terrible cliched lapse of judgement that I allowed to continue for far too long, but I did love her.” 

“A subordinate?” Villanelle asks her. 

“My assistant,” the woman laughs softly. “And young enough to be, well… I imagine an age-mate of yours, actually.”

“And mine was probably your age,” Villanelle tells her flippantly. “Tell me more. Why did it end?” 

She takes a few steps towards Talia as she speaks, watching the way the woman’s eyes darken and shiver from green to black like an animal on the hunt, unaware of its own position, shifting between predator and prey. 

“My husband found out,” she says simply. The tone of her voice is hard with beaten anger and the memory of bruises and broken bones. 

“And why did that end?” Villanelle asks when she’s close enough to feel the heat of the other woman through the thin layer of clothing separating them. 

“My brothers killed him,” Talia answers with a high defiant chin. It manifests in a strength and conviction that Villanelle hasn’t seen yet this evening. “One of the benefits of a family like ours, I suppose. They like to be the only ones that hurt us, I have found.”

Villanelle  _ likes _ it, she realises, when the hair at the nape of her neck pricks with anticipation. She will be fun to break. She might fight until the very end. 

Humming with approval, Villanelle nods to make clear her opinion on the fact. “Good,” she says as well. She frowns as she considers her next question. “Did it help? Killing him, I mean? Did it make you feel better?”

“No,” the woman shakes her head. “It didn’t. Not like I thought it would. I thought it would be cathartic, but I think it made me angrier. His pain ended. Mine did not. It wasn’t justice after all.”

It makes her wonder then if that was why Anna had turned the gun on herself rather than letting a bullet find a new home somewhere in her gut. Maybe she knew her suffering would swell and grow like a tumour if Villanelle’s was the life she ended. Maybe she knew taking her own was the only real way out. Maybe she did it to spite Villanelle, or Oksana, or whoever she blamed the most for taking her husband’s life. Perhaps she thought that depriving Oksana of herself would be the only punishment fitting enough for her crime. 

How disappointed she would be with the truth; that all she had really done was free Oksana and Villanelle from that place, would remove one of the only things worth tempting her back to that shithole of a country. How disappointed she would be to know that her death had only made it easier for Oksana to walk away from her forever and infinitely easier to turn completely towards Eve who’s attention and affection were so different to Anna’s, so much truer, so much deeper, with a thousandfold fewer conditions and strings attached. Anna had always shied away from her darkness, eyes hooded and truly afraid. Eve has never glanced away from it, not for a moment, not once. 

The sound of the woman in the present running her finger around the top of her wine glass pulls Villanelle from her distraction. The crystal whispers beneath her touch and Villanelle wonders whether the woman will sound as beautiful beneath her own hand, will sing as sweetly.

“Let us be done with ghosts,” Villanelle says to rid herself of the weak hand on her shoulder; Anna’s, she thinks. Not Eve’s. She takes the glass from the woman’s hand and sets it on the marble by her hip, pushing it back out of the way with a second thought. 

“How do you propose we do that?” the woman asks, wordlessly twisting her body to accommodate the way Villanelle moves closer to her, giving her space to come near enough that they could catch tears between their hips. “It’s not so easy, after all.”

“Close your eyes,” Villanelle says as she tilts the woman’s head to the side and presses her lips against the soft skin of her throat.

Talia  _ mewls _ , the sound feline and warming, finding purchase somewhere deep between Villanelle’s thighs. Her hands come up and rest; one at the back of Villanelle’s neck, holding her in place and the other on her waist, anchoring her in place, encouraging her closer and closer still. 

Without another word, Villanelle lifts Talia up onto the marble countertop and with hands on the woman’s hips moves between the thighs that widen to allow her to press her body flush to the one that is so different to Eve’s-

_ No _ , she says to herself angrily, and to Eve hovering on the periphery.  _ Leave me. You don’t get to be here now. I don’t want you here now _ . 

Of course you do, Eve sneers, the sound hollow in Villanelle’s head. I’m not here because I want to be. I’m here because you want me. 

_ Lie _ , she bites back.  _ You’re a liar, Eve Polastri. You want to be here as much as I want you to be. _

Not-Eve at least has the decency to shut her mouth then, blushes and retreats with the truth of Villanelle’s accusation, or maybe that’s just Villanelle’s mind playing tricks on her again. 

_ You want to be here, Eve, _ she thinks to herself and to Eve as she slides her hand along the inside of the woman’s thighs.  _ You want this to be you _ , she thinks as she drags black lingerie down toned calves that are so different to Eve’s.  _ You wish this was you so badly you had to make me kill you rather than admit it to yourself _ . 

Fuck you, she hears Eve say very clearly somewhere in the back of her mind as she slides home and groans when the woman in her arms envelopes her. 

_ You wish, Eve, _ she bites back, sucking a deep purple bruise into willingly presented flesh. Imagines that she’s marking Eve instead, the blood drawn from so deep a place that it never fades. Talia moans like a lady, her pleasure genuine and ravishing, nothing like she imagines Eve, unrefined and animal, would sound.  _ You wish, Eve. You wish _ .

  
  


.

  
  


When Dasha gives her the postcard with the London assignment she feels her heart pinch and twist unpleasantly in her chest. It burns as she remains completely still for a moment and Eve’s ghost moves in closer, looks over her shoulder at her menu. “I’m not ready,” she says, and then regrets it immediately. She doesn’t need to give Dasha any more information than she’s already been able to glean without Villanelle’s consent on the matter of Eve Polastri or any of her other perceived weaknesses. 

The control and ease with which she used to be able to shut out this noise is slipping. Maybe she needs to go to London to regain it. Maybe she needs to see the fear manifest in Eve’s eyes to overpower it, show the real version of her who is truly in control. Yes, she thinks. That’s it. Enough of this false ghost.  _ She makes you weak. She is alive. She makes you weak.  _ She’ll see the real Eve, and if necessary, if that’s what it takes to regain her footing, she’ll kill her again. Properly this time. Will wait to watch the last breath leave her, to be sure. Or maybe she’ll kiss her, take Eve’s head in her hands and kiss her so deeply they both forget fragile alliances and enough lies to sink a continent. And then break her neck. 

  
  


.

  
  


Villanelle takes a different woman home the next night who couldn’t look more dissimilar to Eve or to Anna, her long blonde hair and fine features closer to her own. It feels important, somehow, an act of rebellion.  _ See _ , she says to Eve, to Anna, to all her ghosts.  _ I don’t need you, I don’t need you. I don’t. _

She’s younger than her previous bed-mate, less perceptive, more blindly trusting when Villanelle takes the drink from her hand and leads her to the edge of the room where a few people are stumbling close together in something that might be considered a dance floor if you squinted. The lights are low when she accepts the first kiss from the blonde woman, growls pleased when she doesn’t bother to make simple conversation, just kisses Villanelle back harder when she reciprocates. It could’ve further from the careful, graceful, ice-thin, almost prophetic discussion from last night, thank god. She’s not in the mood for intelligent or deep conversation tonight; she’s in the mood to burn and take the world with her. 

They barely speak at all between the bar Villanelle finds her in and her bedroom, all tacit consent given in the way they kiss and press each other into every surface along the way, mouths desperate and hands searching. The only words uttered are from the woman, offering her hotel as a place to spend the night, or the next few hours at least but Villanelle declines politely; her place is closer, and besides, she hadn’t planned on a night away from the apartment and doesn’t have anything on her save a small knife tucked into her boot. 

She doesn’t trust Dasha enough yet to let her guard down enough to find herself without a weapon of some kind. Konstantin knew better than to try and spook her into good behaviour but Dasha used to be fond of sending someone desperate enough to do anything for fifty euro to trail her when she least expected it, paid them to beat her just badly enough in an alley that she’d look both ways and behind her for the next few weeks. “Training never stops,” Dasha used to tell her when she’d come home with a black eye or split lip. “Don’t get lazy. This isn’t the militia, remember. You don’t have brothers or sisters to look out for you. Everyone wants to kill us. Nobody really has our back.” Once a drug addict had taken his job a little too seriously and almost killed her, most definitely would have if Villanelle hadn’t sunk a piece of glass she’d dug out of the bin he’d thrown her in into his neck in the final seconds her oxygen starved brain had left. 

She’d taken the wad of small bills out of his pocket and a trophy in the form of a single bloody finger back to Dasha, thrown them into her lap and then pulled the neck of her sweater down far enough to see the ugly purple and black marks where his hands had fit so heavily against her throat. 

“If you do that to me again, the next finger I take will be yours,” she had said hoarsely, tasting blood on her breath before turning and storming out of the room. 

She hadn’t slept a wink that night. Instead, she had lain on top of her bed fully clothed with a long knife in her hands, the blade resting in the middle of her chest, waiting for Dasha to retaliate. When the dawn started to intrude through the threadbare curtains of the cheap safe house, Dasha had pushed the door open, setting a cup of steaming tea on Villanelle’s bedside table, not commenting on the figure dressed and wide awake. 

“I’m not afraid of you, Oksana,” Dasha had said, ardently not looking at her. 

Without taking her eyes off the cheap stucco of the roof, Villanelle replied. “Maybe you should be.” 

“You’re a child,” Dasha had said around harsh laughter, like this exposed Villanelle’s weakness and not her strength. “Drink your tea, and then get some rest,” she had said dismissively. “No sleep is bad for you. And stop killing your training partners. It’s expensive to clean up your mess.”

“Stop sending insects out to do your job,” Villanelle had bitten back. “If you don’t, I will keep doing this. I don’t care what it costs.”

“Will you behave now?” Dasha asked, crossing arms over her chest. “Are you telling me I should stop these lessons?”

“I am not afraid of you either, старуха,” Villanelle had said finally, swinging her legs off the bed, walking out without looking back. “But one day you will be afraid of me. I promise.”

The next woman had been the last Dasha had sent to follow her. She had been a proper asset too, not a half-crazed lunatic; her blows had felt like cannon fire, like her fists were made of concrete, but Villanelle backed into a corner was dangerous too. They’d ended up in hospital beds, side by side in the intensive care unit. Villanelle had woken up after a week. The other woman had not. True to an unspoken word, Dasha hadn’t ever sent another to tail her, but Villanelle hadn’t ever stopped watching her back. 

That’s not to say she’s ever truly safe anywhere, such naivety would be foolish, tantamount to a death wish, but she feels better knowing where little things are hidden around her own space, wherever that might be. London, Paris, Barcelona, even in Perm in Anna’s depressing little apartment, inconspicuous places held dangerous things that would be near impossible for anyone but her to find. She has a gun in four rooms of the Barcelona apartment, knives in all of them, and a couple of lengths of razor wires stashed in the smaller hiding places. She even has a mask and a canister of tear gas stashed under the bed after the narrowly-avoided clean-up incident in Paris. She’s still furious she hadn’t been able to retrieve that pink chiffon dress; it had been so much fun to wear. 

The tip-toed waltz from the front door to the bedroom is a hazy breathless stumble and they’re both leaning into each other with equal desperation by the time Villanelle pushes the blonde against the archway leading into her bedroom. The other woman’s kisses are an odd mix of hungry and yet still submissive, so the first thing she actually says to Villanelle comes neither as a surprise nor something overly displeasing despite the hesitation in her voice. 

“I should tell you, I’ve not…” she sounds shy, and yet her hands move up and down Villanelle’s arms with the ease of someone who is familiar with a woman’s body. She’s blushing when she looks up into Villanelle’s eyes. “I mean I’ve slept with women before, but not many and – well, it’s obvious you’re very good at this, and I’m—“ 

Villanelle swallows the swell of pleasure and pride that threatens to fill the space between her lungs and kisses the hesitation from the woman’s lips instead of trying to lead her to a sense of security with words. 

“I don’t care,” Villanelle tells her honestly, resting her hands on the blonde’s hips, waiting for the tension to leave her shoulders. Her physical desire is clear, as is the desire to make her way to the bed she keeps glancing at, but she’s nervous in the shadow of Villanelle’s confidence. Anna was nervous when they first started sleeping together, her breath too short and too light when Oksana’s hands settled softly on her body, not quite drawing enough oxygen from the air around them down into her lungs. 

There’s more steel in this woman than Anna ever had though, more determination, and Villanelle knows instinctively that a moment of quiet will unlock everything she wants but doesn’t yet feel bold enough to verbalise. 

_ Can’t you see, Eve _ , Villanelle says to herself, and to all her ghosts. _ This is what happens when you trust me. Liberation. This could be you. It could have been you for months. Think of how free you would be by now, but you turned your back instead. _

Her partner for the evening seems to sense the genuineness in the way Villanelle stops, waiting for her heartbeat to catch up with them. It’s easy to pause for a moment, look over the lines of the woman’s face. She’s fairer than Villanelle, her eyes such a deep green that they’re almost brown. Her bone structure is finer too, more Baltic than her own. Villanelle relaxes, and the other woman softens too. 

It’s truly of no consequence, how little experience the woman has had; she really doesn’t care. There’s something about the clumsy touch of the unpracticed that she quite likes, makes her feel righteous and possessive over the body beneath her, pride swells when she thinks that she’s about to touch flesh rarely marked. It reminds her too of what she used to imagine Eve would be like. She can’t decide now, whether she thinks Eve would be hesitant or sure. Whether her kisses would be more teeth than the soft touch of lip, whether she’d submit easily or fight hard. She’s not sure that Eve herself would be able to anticipate the reaction until it played out in front of them. 

Confidence growing, the woman in Villanelle’s arms presses into her again, kisses her deeply, the tightness in her frame all but evaporated and Villanelle exhales with satisfaction. 

_ See, Eve _ , she thinks as she leads the woman to bed,  _ it’s easy to give in. So easy _ . The blonde watches Villanelle with wide dark eyes as she sits down on the edge of the bed and pulls her forward gently with fingers tucked into the waistband of her skin-tight jeans.  _ So easy, when you’re not thinking about stabbing me and fucking me at the same time.  _

Warm thighs press against hers as the woman climbs into her lap, straddling her and smiling into the next kiss as her hands find the hem of her own top. She has it almost completely off when Villanelle moves in to help, pulling it over her head and tossing it to the side before she rids herself of the same piece of clothing and a second later it follows a similar path, landing soundlessly out of view. 

The reactions Villanelle draws from the woman when her hands splay and flatten over her lower back and her mouth finds the tender beat of her pulse are more pleasing than she had been expecting, and the groan that slips past her lips when she flips their position, rolling them and pressing her companion into the bed is completely genuine. They shift up the bed slightly and Villanelle catches the glint of silver under a pillow. Without breaking step she draws herself up and over the woman, taking her wrists in both hands and pinning them above her head, pressing them firmly into the mattress. Squirming pleasantly, the woman rolls her hips up into Villanelle’s and tests the strength of the hold, her cheeks pink and her breath short when the reasonable attempt reveals itself to be futile.

“Too much?” Villanelle asks silkily, gesturing to the firm grip, pleased when the woman shakes her head. 

“No,” she sighs more than speaks. “No, it’s not.”

“Good,” Villanelle breathes, then taking advantage of the distraction, shifts both wrists into one hand and stretches out long and lithe. The action brings their bodies almost completely flush but it allows Villanelle to slip her hand beneath the pillow and curl her fingers around the handle of the folded switchblade and tuck it discreetly beneath the mattress all in the space of a few seconds, hidden but still accessible. 

That taken care of, Villanelle releases one of the wrists into her free hand and centres the weight of her body through that connection, curls her fingers and seals her palms against the delicate fragile skin, closes her eyes and waits until she can feel the gentle pulsing of a heartbeat. It’s such a misconception, that the line between life and death is delicate like thin glass. It’s not. It takes power to pierce through, to rupture the consciousness trying so hard to hold one part of itself to something else. It rebels against the absence of light, it wants to persevere, to endure. Sensing some kind of unconscious threat, that throb speeds up, becomes louder, more insistent.  _ I’m here _ , it says to her.  _ I’m here, I’m fighting. _

She wonders whether the strength in Eve’s wrists would have matched this if she hadn’t turned and left without making sure she had claimed her victory. 

“Tell me what you like,” Villanelle asks the flushed face when she settles right over the woman’s hips. 

“This,” the woman replies breathlessly, flexing her hands and making the muscle and tendon under Villanelle’s palms jump and twitch. 

_ I think you would like this too, Eve _ , she thinks as she squeezes just a little harder, waits for a gasp before releasing just enough to settle on the right side of painful.  _ Or would you surprise me _ , she considers.  _ Would you prefer me to be gentle? Would you ask that because you think I’m not capable of it? _

As if in defiance she maintains the tension of her hold but softens her body against the one below her, allows her muscles to ease and melt, feels the low growl of satisfaction in response and hips buck up insistently. 

_ Look, Eve, _ she thinks, commands, as she moves down to take a firm breast in her mouth.  _ Are you watching? Do you see this? Look how good it could be for you _ . 

She kisses a messy line back up the woman’s inner thigh after she removes the last obstacle of clothing between them, sinking her teeth painfully into the sensitive skin near her groin, her hands spread over the woman’s hips, holding her down when she jumps and writhes in pain. She glances up, pressing a soft kiss over the indents of her teeth, hiding the smirk when the woman flinches ever so slightly. She waits without moving again until the woman sighs, frustrated, with the inaction and eager for her to continue, the hot flush across her chest and the quaking muscles of her thighs betraying how much she truly enjoys the harshness of Villanelle’s touch. 

“Keep going,” the woman pants when Villanelle’s mouth hovers, breath gentle, over the mark reddening on her skin. “Please.” 

The grin of pleasure and satisfaction that crosses her face is completely genuine and for a moment all she sees, all she wants to take in is the beauty and power of the image presented to her; the reality of it, the actual person and not the half-image of someone else. The woman truly is beautiful, even as different as she is to Anna and Eve and the woman from Berlin and everyone else she’s ever used to fill the unfillable gap, that unhealable wound that tore through when she was shoved roughly into a dirty Russian police vehicle so long ago now. 

For a second, the heat of the woman beneath her tongue and the shiver that passes from her thighs into the palms of her hands when she comes, gasping noiselessly, is enough. And then, as quick as the satisfaction had come, it leaves, it parts from her, and she’s left wholly incomplete. Empty. Hollow.

She won’t admit it to herself, can’t quite get past the admission given without thinking,  _ I feel things when I’m with you,  _ yet but the only time that ache stops, the only time the itch ceases, is when she’s with Eve. It’s been a long time since someone has had power over her like this, and even though it lacks the suffocating constriction that others have had in the past, she’s not sure she likes how it feels. It makes the desire to see that life snuffed our burn hot and angry in her gut but that passes just as quickly as her relief had a moment ago. What would really happen if Eve were to die? Would she go back to the old version of herself? Or is it already too late? The knowledge, knowing how it feels to revel in the absence of that ache is tremendously dangerous and terribly freeing all at the same time. What if she spent her whole life trying to replicate it until the exhaustion of her search finally killed her. What if, what if, what if-

_ Enough _ , she snaps to herself.  _ Enough _ , she snarls at Eve, across the room with wide eyes watching her.  _ Get out _ , she says, closing her eyes and descending anew into pliant and willing flesh, but the image of Eve doesn’t fade again, it doesn’t waver, it hovers and haunts no matter how much she tries to shut it out. 

It isn’t until later when the woman is sound asleep, naked limbs tangled in her thousand dollar sheets, that she realises how insistent, how unrelenting, how unrefusable the call towards Eve truly is. She finally dislodges the arm draped over her waist and walks into her bathroom some time in the early hours of the morning, taking the silk bathrobe off the back of the door and pulling it on and picking up her phone where she’d left it earlier in the night on the edge of the bathroom sink. 

She spends the next few hours typing and deleting a series of messages to Eve, trying to settle on just the right thing to say after six months of silence between them. She turns threats into poetry and poetry into threats but none of it seems quite right, nothing feels quite  _ good _ enough, nothing seems to fill the chasm between them satisfactorily and in the end she says nothing, deleting the last string of characters in romantic loping French. No, she decides eventually, she won’t send a message ahead of her arrival. She doesn’t want to spoil the expression that she’s already anticipating will be written on Eve's face when she sees her for the first time, wherever that reunion might take place. 

Pleased with the decision, she puts her phone down and walks back to bed, dropping the silk robe from her shoulders with an elegant laziness before she slides between the sheets. The woman rolls over and reaches for her, pressing a lazy line of kisses down Villanelle’s neck. Yes, she thinks as she gives herself over the woman, allows her to become Eve when she closes her eyes. That would be much better. That would be so much better. She’ll surprise her instead. 

_ You’re a real asshole _ , Eve says from the corner of her mind, watching them as she comes surprisingly quickly under the girl’s hand, her fingers twisted messily in the woman’s thick blonde hair as she holds the teeth to her neck. 

_ And you’re jealous _ , she replies, holding her name between her teeth.  _ See you soon, Eve _ , she thinks with her exhale.  _ I’ll see you so soon _ . 

.


	2. two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle rolls her eyes impatiently at Eve’s apparent aggression. “Good evening, Villanelle,” she says in an exceptional imitation of Eve's voice, leaning against the expensive-looking wallpaper and ignoring Eve’s slightly awkward position pressed against the front door. “Thank you so much for inviting me,” she continues. “It is wonderful to see you again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Most of this chapter is based on my conviction they had some meeting together at the end of 3x03. I feel like there’s an intimacy between Villanelle and Eve when they see each other in 3x07 that could totally just be from the fact that they’re happy to see each other but I think also makes total sense that it could have come from them seeing each other again after the bear incident. I think it also makes sense for so much of the narrative between 3x03 and 3x07 as well and how much of Eve’s animosity towards her falls away. Also makes sense as to why she’s in a different place emotionally towards Villanelle because it’s such a shift from punching Villanelle on a bus to visibly yearning for her on a train platform.

.

  
  


iii.

(part one)

**This magnificent thing.**

_ Villanelle _

  
  


She had thought of another plan for the bear, initially meant to send it to the shitty little office of the shitty little newspaper Eve seems to be frequenting of late, but now she knows Eve was waiting for her, now she’s seen the desire confirmed in Eve's eyes with her own, she has a much better, more intimate plan. 

It’s disgustingly easy to break into Eve’s apartment, so simple it almost makes her cross because  _ really, anyone could have broken in and hurt you, Eve. This is child’s play for anyone, not just me. _ She furrows her brow when she pushes the front door open, the scowl deepening as she takes a tentative step further inside the dingy little apartment, and then another. She picks her way through a few of the personal effects scattered around the apartment, surprised at the dirty state of the place before she finds the high-strength painkillers and notices that most of the rubbish around is medical paraphernalia of one kind or another; empty gauze packets and pill bottles, a padded sling and a few disposable ones, various piles of doctors notes and discharge forms. 

Still, Eve, she thinks with a disapproving scowl. It wouldn’t kill you to be a little tidier. 

There are a few things that Villanelle can’t help but notice that do please her amongst the mess. Despite a photo of Eve and the beanstalk in pride of place above her bed, there is very clearly only  _ one _ person living here. When she turns a few more things over, it’s clear that Eve hasn’t really had any visitors either. There isn’t a single sign of life from anyone that isn’t Eve among the chaos of this dark, desperate little cave. Not a sock or pair of underwear. Nothing. Well, she thinks to herself. That is something, at least. 

Maybe he’s dead, she wonders; the husband. That could explain a few things. But no, she decides after a few more minutes spent rummaging through Eve’s things. There would be a presence of him here then; Eve seems like the type that would want to hold onto possessions in that scenario. If for no other reason than to try and convince herself of feelings for a man that Villanelle suspects have been absent and fake for a long time before she found Eve. There would be a funeral sheet at the very least, and definitely a few old pieces of clothing. Maybe an old scratched wedding ring or other items of jewellery. Out of guilt rather than sentimentality, she scoffs. Even if Eve would refuse to admit that to herself let alone anyone else. 

No, Villanelle decides after another few minutes spent digging around. Niko has never stepped foot in this place. Eve is here alone, clearly living here too, not just using it as a transient place to stay every second night. Eve is here alone, without protection or a sufficient security system, she notes at the same time. Eve is here, alone, waiting for her. 

Walking too close to the table, something small but hard in her pocket knocks against the wood. Her hand reaches for the small perfume bottle, fingers closing around it, wrapping around the glass and liquid warmed by her body heat. Will Eve’s throat feel as soft and unyielding at the same time when she stops her breath beneath the right grip of her palm? Will the temperature of her skin feel different? 

Removing the glass vial from her pocket, Villanelle pulls the stopper free and throws it somewhere over her shoulder. She lifts the tiny travel-sized bottle up and moves it gently under her nose, testing the scent, grinning to herself as the different notes of the perfume wash over her. The perfumer had done well in spite of the trembling of his hands and his initial dismissal of her. The result of her afternoon had been fruitful, the final balance of scents heady and rich and deeply unique. Expensive. Something no one would forget,  _ could _ forget, even if they tried. 

She wonders whether Niko ever bothered to buy Eve perfume. Probably not even for a special occasion, she snorts dismissively as she begins to walk around the dismal little space, tipping small measures of the perfume over whatever is nearest to her with every fifth or sixth step.  _ What a waste _ , she thinks as she waltzes a solo dance in the dark. You deserve so much better than him, Eve. You always have. He isn’t even remotely worthy of you. 

Villanelle circles the studio unit until the bottle is almost empty and she can taste the tang of it on her tongue with every exhale. She fits her thumb over the top of the bottle to preserve the last of what she has on her, not having wanted to carry the heavy crystal bottle containing the rest of her supply halfway across London from the perfumery and makes her way over to the bed where the gauche little pink bear waits. She flips the toy over and pulls the back open, then proceeds to sprinkle the last of the deep amber liquid directly into the little pocket and sets it down for a moment so she can retrieve the credit-card sized room key from one pocket and the red plastic heart from another. She tucks the room key in first and tests the heart once, grinning at the sound of her own recorded voice before she stuffs that in too, pinching the edges of the Velcro sewn into the back of the bear together before turning it back around and straightening both the crown and dress. 

The stomach of the bear hardly looks different full of contents but the slightest touch is enough to depress the heart and set her voice on a loop. 

“I am sorry for whatever she does to you,” she tells the bear before she pulls back the covers of Eve’s bedding. “She will be surprised, I think, to find you, but happy too. Remember, anger is just her way of showing love, even if she won’t admit it yet.”

She doesn’t bother to retrieve the small cap of the perfume bottle from wherever it has ended up, but she does tuck the small vial back in her pocket. She doesn’t want Eve to stand on it after she’s kicked her shoes off, looks at them lined tidily at the front door, the only small sign of order in the whole apartment. Doesn’t want to risk the fragile glass cracking underfoot. She doesn’t want to give Eve an excuse to be furious with her after she’s gone to so much trouble to leave her such a thoughtful gift. 

Taking one last look around the pitiful apartment, Villanelle allows herself a singular thought, imagines Eve walking through the door she herself is just about to leave from, imagines her making her way straight to one of the half-finished bottles of foul cheap red not even bothering to turn the light on, pictures her settling down onto the edge of the bed or maybe stopping still in the middle of the room when she finally registers the scent that now haunts the space, inescapable no matter where she tries to stand or move to. 

She imagines Eve giving up and climbing into bed without bothering to eat, imagines her finding some relative comfort before she rolls over and disturbs her gift. She stops her mind before it tries to produce the reaction that will inevitably follow; she knows that whatever she imagines, reality will be so much better. She’ll ask Eve instead when she finally sees her again. It doesn’t matter if she tries to lie, Villanelle will know what the truth really is. Eve is a truly terrible liar and she is an exceptional one. They’re a match made in heaven in so many different ways, she muses happily. 

Instead, as Villanelle closes the door behind her and walks away from the dismal place Eve has found herself, she allows herself to think of the way Eve’s head will spin and the way she’ll close her eyes to try and free herself from its grasp, the way she’ll lean into it after her stubborn resistance gives way, how she’ll feign a fight until everything fades to black and Villanelle and her voice, and  _ admit it, Eve _ is the only thing left. 

  
  


.

iii.

(part two)

**The edge of the world.**

_ Eve. _

  
  


It isn’t until she can hear her own heartbeat ringing in her ears like the latent vibrations of a percussion bomb when she drops herself back into her seat that she realises the world has sound again. Her nose and forehead pound with pain and she can feel blood running down towards her lip. The barely-healed scar on her shoulder aches worse than the line across her chest where Villanelle’s elbow and forearm had held her down, pressed her into the rough fabric of the bus seat; everything hurts, and yet all she can think is that everything feels so dangerously, beautifully unstable in a way it hasn’t for months, and suddenly she can hear, she can taste, she can see  _ everything _ . 

A man's voice echoes around in her head, the same one that’s played over and over and over again since she woke up in a hospital bed in a foreign country with a drip in her arm and a bullet hole in her back.  _ How do you feel now?  _ I don’t feel anything she had spat, growled, hissed back every second since she opened her eyes. I feel like I’m a fucking ghost. I feel like I’m already dead. Villanelle,  _ Oksana _ , had killed her in the same breath she’d used to tell Eve she loved her; she’s been dead, a shadow, nothing since Rome, gone, until  _ she  _ had walked up to Eve on that fucking bus and breathed life back into her like it was her god-given right to. Like Eve’s life was hers, like she owned it, like it wasn’t Eve’s to claim anymore. 

It isn’t until after, when she falls fully clothed back onto her bed, brings the little plastic heart playing Villanelle’s voice over and over and over again, as her hand slips traitorously down the front of her trousers that she admits the thing that’s been pressing into her skin, pressing against her lips since Villanelle had fallen back off her and Eve’s body had immediately and unconsciously yearned for the weight of it, wanted to scream for it, wanted her arm to fall higher over her windpipe maybe, bruise her voice into something that feels the same as her heart does. It’s the same as the thing that she can feel take root over her heart and grow between her ribs like the vines of something beautifully deadly, pushing them outwards to make room for itself heedless of the danger it puts Eve in. The thing that is indescribably  _ her _ . The thing that Eve can still taste on her lips, can still feel in her lungs. It’s want, Eve finally admits to herself in the dark. It’s desire. 

_ Maybe it is,  _ Eve thinks.  _ Maybe I am. Hers to claim. Hers to press the life into and out of. Hers to take. _

_ And maybe _ , she allows herself to admit only for a second, as she comes with a fierce gasp, her forehead and chest sticky with exertion, the plastic heart pressing into her cheek as she turns her head and strains against her own hand.  _ Maybe I want that too. _

Eve closes her eyes, feels the hot burn of shame cut through her stomach, lets her tears soak the pillowcase.  _ How do you feel now? _ That same voice plays in stereo again and again until she wipes angrily at her tears and sends her hand between her thighs once more.  _ Wide awake _ , she says out loud to no one, to herself, to the heavy blade of fate swinging dangerously above her head. Wide. Fucking. Awake. 

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


Eve doesn’t bother knocking on the door of Villanelle’s hotel room. Swiping the key she had pulled from the dismantled bear she lets herself, pushing the door open unceremoniously before she can think about what might be waiting for her on the other side. As the door yawns open, she stands back to survey the room. Her fight-flight instinct screams like she’s just walked into a lion's den, every hair on the back of her neck pricked and raised, telling her to turn and run. 

She’s never listened to her gut around Villanelle though, not when her curiosity has managed to completely override her survival instinct time and time again. Looking around the room Eve knows that she’s not about to start now either. Said lion is sitting cross-legged on the floor, her head turned away from the television and towards her, looking both surprised and smug at the unannounced appearance of Eve at her door. 

“I knew you would find it,” Villanelle says looking pleased and jarringly soft in her plush hotel robe, hair down around her shoulders. “Are you going to come in or are you just going to stand there?”

The casualness of her demeanour, the effortless nonchalance of her question renders Eve speechless. Her voice is light, like the sickeningly heavy weight of their entire history is nothing more than a fact to be stored in the back of her mind, like it doesn’t consume every waking thought and keep her from sleep like Eve’s does, loathing bubbling viscously in her veins, like their exchange on the bus had been a pleasant and civil conversation instead of-

Everything about her screams calm but there is  _ something _ , Eve realises, almost like excitement, that suggests some kind of recognition; the prick of a smile on the edge of her mouth as she licks her lips and stares at Eve’s, pausing for a second before she schools her face into neutrality again. 

“It’s late,” Villanelle says as she rises from her position on the floor, the movement smooth and feline. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come.”

The easy almost-ethereal grace of her and the way she takes liberty in closing the space between them without any kind of acknowledgement of the significance of this after so long apart and so much pain between them, infuriates Eve. She smothers down the conscious recognition of the way that it makes her gut twist with something other than anger as well. 

“Why did you leave the room key there?” Eve snaps, choosing to take a step and slam the door shut the second before Villanelle reaches her rather than just waiting like prey caught in a trap. It gives her a moment to stand a little taller, to look through Villanelle in an attempt to control her anger. 

Villanelle rolls her eyes impatiently at Eve’s apparent aggression. “Good evening, Villanelle,” she says in an exceptional imitation of Eve's voice, leaning against the expensive-looking wallpaper and ignoring Eve’s slightly awkward position pressed against the front door. “Thank you so much for inviting me,” she continues. “It is wonderful to see you again.”

Clenching her teeth and refusing to allow Villanelle control of the situation so soon, Eve tries again. “Why did you leave the key there?” she repeats. 

“Did you enjoy the bus ride?” Villanelle asks her instead of answering. “I’ve always wanted to go on a doubledecker but Konstantin said they were for desperate locals who couldn’t afford a car service and pathetic tourists who don’t know how disgusting they are. I can’t wait to tell him how wrong he was.” 

Anger rolls over Eve like a wave. She should turn on her heel and storm out, take herself away from the smiling animal now almost close enough to touch, to give Villanelle nothing but silence and her back, to deny her the satisfaction of any further reaction. She doesn’t even care if another bullet finds her this time, or a knife, or the pressure of hands on either side of her head a second before her neck snaps. All she wants for once, for  _ once _ , is for Villanelle to give her a goddam straight answer.

A look of comprehension crosses Villanelle’s face like she senses the proximity of Eve’s breaking point. Eve bites her tongue and waits for another joke or cruel jest, but neither come. 

“I wanted to see you,” Villanelle tells her finally, dropping any humour or malice or falseness in a way that leaves Eve blinking dumbly in surprise.

She doesn’t know why but the admission makes Eve angrier rather than providing any of the satisfaction or resolution she was expecting. “It’s that simple?” she asks. 

Villanelle shrugs, looking almost confused at Eve’s question. “Yes,” she says, as though as much should be obvious. 

“And you thought it was a good idea to do that after everything you’ve done to me?” Eve asks incredulously. “You thought it was a good idea to give me an address that I could have bought back up to or just sent the police to storm?”

“You wouldn't,” Villanelle says with an air of confidence that makes Eve want to slap her. 

“Why?” she asks instead. 

“You’re still too angry with me to let someone else have me before you,” Villanelle replies, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement causes the robe to shift revealing a sliver of collarbone, too deeply tanned to be the result of English sun regardless of the season. Her words, the specific choice of them perhaps, make something else ring in Eve’s ears. She often wonders whether she picks them out one by one, like she does when she’s tired and English is harder; whether they’re all intentional or accidental. 

She was an extraordinary student, Anna had once told her. Yes, Eve thinks. They are all intentional. And, yes, Anna. She is. 

For the first time, it makes Eve wonder where the hell Villanelle has been for the last six months. Somewhere luxurious and hot would be an easy guess, but beyond that Eve has no clues. Does she have an established flat or apartment somewhere? Is she still moving from place to place like some kind of rich financially irresponsible nomad? Was she with anyone else? Was there a regular scent or perfume to the other side of her bed? Many? None at all? Has she been…  _ faithful… _ to Eve since Rome or had she moved on as soon as she’d left Eve to die in the ruins? Why the fuck does Eve care either way? 

_ Because you want it to be you, liar _ , the devil's advocate spits cuttingly inside her head. Because you’re jealous. Because you want her to have been thinking of you the whole time, sleepless every single night thinking of the place you might have been together if you’d left with her. Because you want the shape of the body moulded into her bed to be yours. 

The silence makes Eve pause, makes them both pause, and they appraise each other properly for a long time in a way that they hadn’t on the bus. 

“I’m still very angry with you, you know,” Villanelle says finally, raising an eyebrow and pushing her hip out as if in defiance, daring Eve to challenge her. 

The shock of her statement leaves Eve still with fury for a moment, the candour of Villanelle’s words like a noose around her neck. “You’re angry with me?” she splutters. “With me? You shot me, Villanelle. Did you forget that? You left me for dead.”

“Yes, but you hurt me first, didn’t you?” Villanelle asks, her eyes flashing dangerously as she pushes off the wall and takes a step closer to Eve. “You stabbed me first, and then rejected me after I killed Aaron Peel when he would have given me anything to kill you. You gave me no choice, Eve, but none of that really matters because you tried to kill me first.” There’s anger in her eyes that Eve has only ever really seen a flash of, back in her kitchen what feels like a million years ago after Villanelle had handed her a mug of champagne that probably cost more than half the appliances in that room. It’s enough to make her skin crawl in recognition, enough to make her feel very, very cold as her body floods with fear, proper primal fear as the doe in her recognises the beast in Villanelle. 

As quickly as it had come, the danger disappears leaving effortless confidence and deceitful innocence in its place. “Lucky for you though, I’m willing to forgive you,” Villanelle says matter-of-factly. “I’ve done a lot of growing since we last saw each other, you wouldn’t believe how much actually,” she tells Eve proudly, almost seeming to wait for praise before continuing. “You hurt me,” she holds up one hand. “I hurt you,” she holds up the other at the same height. “I’d say that makes us even, don’t you?” 

Bill rushes through her mind. Then Frank. Gemma. Maybe Kenny.  _ No _ , she thinks furiously.  _ We’re nowhere near even _ . 

_ If that’s really the case, _ her mind replies to her own thought traitourously.  _ Then why are you here _ ? 

Villanelle is watching her, appraising her, Eve can feel the heat of her gaze as she looks over her shoulder to survey the room for any obvious weapons before she reaches for the short kitchen knife hidden in her pocket, hastily shoved there on her way out of her own front door.  _ Even _ ? she thinks incredulously.  _ Even _ ?  _ How the hell could we ever be even? _

Without thinking she allows her rage to boil over and she pushes Villanelle hard, catching her off guard and causing her to stumble backwards a few steps. Before she can question the stupidity and insanity of the action she shoves a still clearly confused Villanelle again, watching almost like a completely removed spectator as she topples backwards when her calves hit the side of the bed. 

Eve pins her to the bed, can feel Villanelle under her, beneath her thighs, thinks  _ oh, this is what it must have felt like for her on the bus _ . Adrenalin surging and sanity still absent, she draws the knife out to hold against Villanelle’s throat, watching as something finally flashes across her eyes. Pride maybe; surprise? It slips back before Eve can properly identify it though, and the predator steps forward at the same time as Eve readjusts her fingers over the worn wood of the handle. 

The sheer physicality, the power rumbling through Villanelle beneath Eve’s hands makes her shudder, whether in fear or reverence she isn’t sure. She can feel the post-shower heat of the other woman’s skin, can smell that perfume thick and rich in her lungs, can smell something else too when she takes a hesitant breath in, something oddly familiar and earthy. 

_Oh,_ _god_ , Eve realises at once. _Arousal_. 

The inactivity, the momentary almost ethereal stillness ends suddenly. Villanelle’s eyes flash hard, done with the game and hungry for Eve to play her hand. “Do it,” Villanelle commands, growling like an animal, grabbing Eve's wrist and holding the blade up to her own throat so tightly it slips and bites into the skin. “Do it, Eve,” she says again. “If you truly want to kill me, do it now. You will not get another chance, I promise you.”

Eve squeezes her fist around the handle, her knuckles white and aching with the tension, her joints feeling ready to burst through the skin. Before she can stop herself, catch the misstep, her eyes fall to Villanelle’s lips. It’s only for a second, a  _ split-second _ , but Villanelle, with her hunter’s instincts so finely honed, follows Eve’s gaze down and back up, catching the momentary indulgence, the temporary slip. 

Only, it isn’t just a temporary slip. There’s no way that the scene around her eyes can be framed as accidental, can be framed as anything but purposeful anymore. Her action on the bus might have been labelled as such, a mistake, a desperate action of a frantic doe about to be eaten alive, but the way she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the press of Villanelle’s breasts against her own, her breathing as heavy and surprised as Eve’s, or the yawningly dangerous warmth of Villanelle’s lips and the way they had  _ called _ for her; the fact that she hadn’t cut the room card up into a million pieces, the fact that she hadn’t turned around on her way here, the fact that she had thought for a split second before she opened the door about the underwear she was wearing, the fact that she hadn’t thrown the key at Villanelle and left, the fact she had rushed Villanelle again knowing she had absolutely no hope of overpowering her not after the effortless show of indomitable strength on the bus, all of those things,  _ any _ of those things, are enough to permanently remove the excuse of an accidental action being the reason for her presence here, forever. 

Villanelle in a strange moment of patience appears to wait for Eve to finish her thought before she acts, though perhaps it’s more to allow realisation to dawn on Eve and settle into her skin than any real show of manners. Eve feels muscles coil and roll beneath her and with nothing more than a breathless gasp, Eve is on her back with Villanelle looming over her, the soft light of the room glinting off the sharp points of her teeth. 

Her expression is hard and unreadable as she flips them, neutral as she surveys her prey. Her thighs press warmly against Eve’s, the thick hotel robe having ridden up in their struggle revealing long lines and musculature that are impossible to ignore. It gapes at the neck as well, offering Eve enough of a view to present the stark fact that Villanelle hasn’t bothered with undergarments of any kind, completely naked beneath the soft white fabric. Her forearm is heavy across Eve's chest making it hard to breathe, exerting pressure on the newly knitted flesh and muscle beneath the scar on her back. It’s a mirror of their position on the bus Eve realises with a jolt, panic setting in when she feels the heat gather between her thighs again. Only this time something is different; Eve isn’t empty-handed. Her hand closes as tightly as she can manage around the knife and tries with all her failing strength to fight back and somehow turn the knife in an attempt to throw Villanelle off. 

Any patience Villanelle had fades with shocking violence in frustration at Eve’s pathetic attempt and she gathers the front of Eve’s shirt roughly in her hands, lifting her just high enough off the bed to shove her back against the firm mattress, forcing any remaining air from her lungs and loosening her grip on the knife. Desperation kicks in and Eve strains hard to breathe, struggles uselessly beneath the impossibly strong weight now pressing across the base of her throat. In one seemingly fluid movement that Eve’s oxygen-deprived brain limps to comprehend, Villanelle snatches the knife up easily with her free hand and before Eve can even gather enough breath to scream, brings it down with shocking fluidity, a sickening grace, into the mattress just beside Eve's head. 

The sound of it tearing through the expensive fabric and the down of the bedding is almost poetic to her strangled consciousness. She can tell by the look on Villanelles face that it isn’t another missed strike, even though it’s close enough to her ear that she can feel the cold radiating off of the blade. 

“Stop struggling,” Villanelle says low and dangerous as the shock begins to wear off and Eve starts a pained attempt at drawing in breath again. “I said stop it, Eve. You’ll only suffocate faster,” she says with even more authority this time, stilling Eve immediately. “And those pathetic little squeaks aren’t very attractive either,” she adds, her lip curling, almost comically displeased. 

Despite herself, Eve flushes with embarrassment, her cheeks hot enough with it that she knows Villanelle can’t possibly have missed it.  _ I don’t care _ , her eyes scream when her voice fails and her vision starts to blur. 

_ Yes, you do, _ Villanelle’s growl back. 

As Eve’s thrashing remains temporarily suspended, Villanelle finally seems to notice their position and proximity to one another. She readjusts, leaning against Eve’s throat and then pushing off just as carelessly in a way that makes her vision falter for a second before she swings a leg between Eve’s and shifts to take both of Eve's wrists in her hands. Her grip is bruising, Eve can feel her bones ache with it. 

“Why did you do it?” Villanelle asks her suddenly. The sound of her voice is jarring against the otherwise quiet room, devoid of sound save the soft hum of the television and their laboured breathing. 

“Do what?” Eve gasps barely audible, her throat raw. 

“Don’t play dumb, Eve,” Villanelle replies coldly. “I’m not in the mood.” Her grip tightens and Eve bites back a gasp. She looks down, her gaze almost as heavy as the weight pinning Eve still. “Answer me before I lose my patience. Why did you do it?”

Eve swallows, wincing in pain, trying to ignore the way Villanelle’s skin feels against hers, electric and warm and fatally inviting. “I don’t know,” she rasps. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Villanelle grits out, less command and more a surprisingly desperate plea. 

“I don’t know,” Eve says angrier now, more defiant even in spite of the pain in her throat and the discomfort radiating in hot waves from her back. 

Villanelle’s gaze falters for a second. “Did you mean it?” she asks. 

“I don’t know,” Eve replies against the growing pressure on her windpipe. 

Instead of releasing the strength of her chokehold to allow Eve more audibility, Villanelle leans closer, dropping down so low that her hair dances across Eve’s cheek. 

Eve turns her head in response, more to stop the frustrating itch than anything else, but Villanelle takes the movement for defiance and she brings herself even closer to Eve. Her eyes move quickly, hunting for something in the staccato of her breathing, in the colour rising up her throat. She waits for a long time before speaking, searches and searches and searches Eve until she stills completely, every muscle pausing as if set in stone. Her next question is breathless. “Do you want to do it again?”

Everything seems to stop then; the beating of their hearts, the sound of the television, the hopeful crawl of night,  _ all _ of it. Everything exhales, everything slows until time ceases entirely. Incapable of speech, Eve simply looks. She hunts for some speck of humanity within Villanelle, for some tiny shred of reason, for a break in the black of her animalistic nature. She feels Villanelle doing the same to her in reverse. 

Villanelle blinks, frowns, still doesn’t breathe. She leans even closer, the taste of her threatening to drown them both, asks Eve something else she feels incapable of answering. “Do you want me to kiss you now?”

Eve still doesn’t say anything, the sound caught in her throat along with her courage and her reason. 

“Tell me,” Villanelle growls finally, tired of Eve's unresponsiveness. “Tell me you want it, or tell me you don’t; you have a choice so for god's sake Eve, make a decision and tell me. If you don’t, then leave. I’m not going to force you. Anyone can do that,” she adds on seeing something in Eve’s eyes. “There’s no satisfaction in that.” 

_ Of course, _ Eve thinks, her mind finally turning to expose the thought.  _ And you’re not like anyone else _ . There’s far more power in making her admit that she wants to be here. That she wants all of this. That for once in her life, Villanelle, no,  _ Oksana _ isn’t alone, that for once this attraction isn’t unrequited. 

It takes all of Eve’s willpower and strength to speak and even then it comes out like a dry whisper. “I don’t-“ 

Before she can finish her sentence Villanelle’s eyes go dark and she makes to move away, goes to push up and off of her once and for all until something that neither of them ever really expected to happen stops her. The  _ no _ , from Eve's lips is involuntary, just like the way she reaches for Villanelle, her hands grasping desperately in an attempt to stop her leaving. 

The smile on Villanelle’s face is deadly when she turns because the action is as much an admission of Eve’s consent as it is of Villanelle’s victory and they both know it. Funny though, that it feels both a victory for Eve and a defeat. She wonders whether the same is true for Villanelle. She wonders if Villanelle has ever even allowed herself to know what defeat tastes like. She wonders if this will be the first time or the last, or if Villanelle will go her whole life without ever knowing its sting. 

“No?” Villanelle asks her, eyebrow raised as she glances down to Eve’s hand tangled in her robe. 

“No,” Eve says slowly. Then, more firmly. “No.” 

“Are you sure?” Villanelle asks her, voice hard like it had been in the kitchen after their first reunion, jaw tensed around that  _ really _ . “How do you know you won’t change your mind, hmm?”

The iron bar against Eve’s neck lessened, she draws in a testing breath, wincing slightly in discomfort as sensation rushes back to the muscles and tendons previously starved before she speaks. “Because-“

“Because  _ what _ , Eve,” Villanelle says, temper flaring and eyes wide. “I’m serious. I won’t stop you from leaving, even though you’ll regret it. I don’t want you here if you don’t want to be here. I don’t want you to be thinking of anyone else while you’re in my bed, while I’m fucking you. You are not so special that I would give you that. Make up your mind, or I’ll make it for us. I won’t ask again.”

Eve doesn’t say anything, still in shock at Villanelle's assumption, still in shock that what she wants so badly is right there on Villanelle’s tongue, in her mind, in the realm of possibility. The sustained silence makes Villanelle’s decision for her though, regardless of Eve's response or lack of it. She pulls herself away completely, shaking Eve’s hold off easily and walking towards the door. 

“If you can’t decide, then go,” Villanelle tells her as her fingers find the door handle. “If you can’t even admit what you want then you’re certainly not ready for anything else.”

Eve's anger flares hot and sticky between her thighs. She knows she’s being manipulated but the real frustration comes from knowing that there’s truth in what Villanelle is saying. 

Her hand twists on the metal instead of Eve’s skin where it belongs. 

_ Now or never, Eve _ , she thinks to herself.  _ Now or never. Do it now and live, or regret it forever. _

“Alright,” Eve snaps. “Alright,” she repeats in a calmer tone.  _ Now or never _ ,  _ Eve _ , she says to herself again before she takes a deep breath and steps off into the abyss. “Because I’ve wanted this,  _ something _ , since the first time I realised who you were, okay? Is that what you want to hear? Since Viktor Kedrin, after Bill, I wanted you even after I found out about Anna and what you did to her.” She should cut herself off there but she’s on a roll now, and the truth comes spilling from her like the red from a bullet wound. “I wanted you when I was fucking my husband, I wanted you when I heard that gun go off, I’ve wanted you the whole time since, even though you tried to kill me.” Eve is properly angry now, the heat of it coming off her in waves. “Is that it, Villanelle? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Villanelle for her part stands almost unnaturally still, unmoving but for the way her hand tightens, twists around the door handle as if trying to control some maelstrom inside her head. 

“Yes,” Villanelle says simply, cocking her hip and trying to pull on an air of nonchalance. “It is.” After a long moment she pushes away from the door and walks, no,  _ stalks _ towards Eve, now sitting up on the edge of the bed. “Do you want to hear a secret?” she husks, kneeling at Eve’s feet when she’s close enough to Eve that Eve can feel the warmth and excitement radiating off her. “I’ve missed two kill shots in my entire life, did you know that? Two. One was Konstantin. And the other was you. I wanted to kill you, Eve, believe me, I did. I had no intention of letting you leave that place without me. We both know I’m capable of it. But I still couldn’t.” She pauses, taking in Eve’s reaction and the shocked stillness of her before reaching out and taking hold of one of Eve’s curls. She winds it around a finger and looks balefully at the rest of it hidden and tied back behind her head. “One more thing,” she adds, leaning in to whisper it into Eve’s ear. “Although I think that it is obvious by now, and I’ve been doing something very wrong if it is not; I’ve wanted you for just as long as you’ve wanted me.”

Eve has always suspected as much, no, she’s always  _ hoped _ as much, but the certainty in hearing it sends a shiver running down her spine and over each vertebra; something that Villanelle doesn’t fail to note. 

“You like that, don’t you?” Villanelle asks, her mouth twisted into a smug grin when she draws back far enough for Eve to see. “Knowing that I’ve been thinking about you for so long. Knowing that I’ve thought about you as I touched myself for so long.”

It fills Eve with the intense and immediate desire to smack the righteousness off her face, something else that Villanelle doesn’t fail to notice. 

With a patience that Eve honestly didn’t think she was capable of, Villanelle drops back onto her knees in front of Eve, leaning into her, letting the swell of her breasts brush against Eve’s shins through her robe.

Eve waits, and waits, and waits, and still Villanelle doesn’t move. Eve can feel her breathing, can feel the firmness of her with each rise and fall of her chest, she can see the blush rising up her neck, can see the barely restrained hunger but minute after minute passes and she remains like that, restrained. Unmoving. Silent.

It takes Eve a while to realise that Villanelle is waiting for something. Waiting, she realises with a spike of anger, for her. Villanelle turns her head, showing Eve the hard line of her jaw in profile but she barely notices it around the flash of something in Villanelle’s eyes as she moves that Eve can’t pinpoint to any specific emotion. It might be annoyance, it might be pity, it might even be hurt, Eve thinks as Villanelle’s hair falls into her eyes and obscures her view. Whatever it  _ is _ fades in importance at the fact that it’s  _ something _ . 

Something from this monster, this deity, this  _ god _ , who isn’t supposed to be able to feel anything at all. 

In spite of the sense of struggling to keep from drowning in a space so far out of her depth that it’s choking, and the rolling wave of doubt in her gut, one thing is perfectly clear to Eve in that moment; the thought of backing out, the thought of leaving here without knowing what it would feel like to have Villanelle touch her, without knowing what it would feel like to touch Villanelle in return, fills her with more fear, more dread, than anything else. 

Before she can overthink the decision any more Eve pushes herself forward. She meets Villanelle’s lips in an open-mouthed kiss that makes the centre of her body ache with it, her tongue pushing into Villanelle’s mouth, trying to give her everything that she can’t quite vocalise but knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wants. 

She can feel Villanelle battling a mix of shock and surprise before the response becomes less automatic and more fluid. Without even seeing them move out of her peripheral vision Eve feels fingers curl around her upper arms and press their imprints into her flesh through the coat she’s still wearing. 

With a jolt, Eve feels Villanelle break the kiss and then opens her eyes to watch Villanelle push up out of her crouch, watches her uncurl the hands and place them on either side of Eve’s hips, watches her lift herself up to hover over Eve as she shuffles back an inch for every one Villanelle advances towards her. It’s not clear whether her movement is in retreat away from the creature stalking towards her, or in response to her own desire and the bed waiting behind her, of where she truly wants to be. 

Eve feels the shaky exhale against her forehead when Villanelle moves with her, feels a slight pressure by her hips when her hands bite into the soft bedding with a sharpness that Eve finds herself wishing she could feel. She can see from the tension in Villanelle’s shoulders and the way the muscles bunch that she’s trying to control herself, reign in and hold back the most dangerous part of herself with control that Eve doesn’t think she’s ever seen from her before. She wonders what it means, that this moment is the one in which Villanelle has decided to show this part of herself, now, when they’re alone and there’s no one to perform for. 

There’s truth in the tremor of her frame, an absence of illusion as she stays like that, barely breathing; almost completely still.

_ She’s still waiting for you to run, _ Eve realises as she watches Villanelle, her head bowed almost as though in prayer. 

“Villanelle,” Eve says firmly as she watches the point of no return pass her by, watches it retreat until it isn’t even visible anymore. She wonders as she farewells it whether that one was simply a figment of her imagination and the real one passed them by in a small hospital bathroom that smelt like bleach and disguises a very long time ago. 

Eve waits until the other woman raises her head, waits to consider the expression reflected there just long enough to register the desire dangerously obvious in her almost black eyes, before grabbing Villanelle’s robe in both hands and pulling her to her again. 

Whatever else it was that Villanelle was waiting for finds a home beneath sinew and muscle and bone, gathers in the air between them and with a sigh that’s almost a moan, the sound reverberating down into the pulse between her thighs, Villanelle _lets_ _go_. 

Pushing up from her position still half-crouching in front of Eve, in a sinfully easy movement, one of Villanelle’s hands finds her wrist and disengages her grip on the front of her robe and the other slides around Eve’s lower back, shifting Eve up the bed and away from the edge of it. She settles over Eve, one thigh between hers pressing the full weight of her hips against Eve before she moves again, taking Eve’s other hand in hers, pressing both above her head and throwing her leg over Eve’s to straddle her. The adjusted position gives Villanelle more power through the lines of her shoulders that she wields so gracefully, turning it into a strength that pools down in her hands and allows her to pin Eve firmly to the bed; tethering them together. 

“Yes, Eve,” Villanelle says calmly, almost conversationally, and not at all like she finally has everything she’s ever wanted gazing up at her with wide eyes and parted lips. 

“If you don’t hurry up and kiss me, I’ll leave,” Eve growls, as menacingly as she can manage, trying desperately not to sound like a mouse beneath a lion's paw. 

Eve feels the fingers around her wrists ease and flex before they press into her skin again so firmly she’s certain the strength of it could crack marble, will most certainly bruise deep into skin and muscle and maybe even bone but the pain is secondary, everything else in the whole fucking world is secondary to the recognition in Villanelle’s response. 

“You wouldn’t,” Villanelle replies, cocky and uncertain and terrified all at the same time. 

_ No, I wouldn’t, _ Eve thinks, realising at Villanelle’s smirk that she must have said as much aloud. 

Tired of waiting and eager to take hold of the upper hand, she kisses Villanelle to rid her of the smug expression as much as anything else. The success of that is twofold; the confidence turns into desire and any residual hint of hesitation in Villanelle fades and she replies with recklessness, meeting the willingness and passion and finality in Eve’s kiss. Finality because this truly is it; the end of all things, the end of Eve's life as she knows it. She will not leave this room the same Eve that entered, she will leave with a piece of another soul woven into the scar of her back like a fragment of bullet that they hadn’t been able to retrieve before they’d stitched her up, the part of Villanelle inside her, waiting to be burnt into some semblance of consciousness, waiting to be brought to life by the touch of the real thing. 

Almost as frustrating as the building ache between her thighs is the realisation as Eve allows herself to sink and fall into the fullness of her senses, of how  _ good _ Villanelle is at this. She’d almost hoped that she wouldn’t be, it might be easier to walk away from here certain that this would be a one-time thing if that were the case but no, instead Villanelle is wildly responsive, warm and hot and soft at once, rolling her hips heavily against Eve’s in time with the cadence of her kiss which is rhythmically matched to the pace of her tongue. 

Eve gasps when Villanelle pushes herself up and off her, using her grip on her wrists as an anchor point. It sends a shot of pain up Eve’s arm and into her shoulder but the sound is more the result of her absence than pain because pain is irrelevant, pain is secondary,  _ everything _ is secondary. “I hate you,” Eve rasps when they break apart, each exhale pulling more of her out and into the air to be swallowed, to be taken in, to be consumed by Villanelle. Her hips push up in their hunger when Villanelle holds herself away from Eve to survey her like someone famished, starved for years. 

The movement exposes the skin of her stomach and Villanelle’s eyes dart between them and smile like a tiger sighting a deeply pulsing vein, her pupils growing, black devouring the colour of her irises. Taking both of Eve’s wrists in one of her hands in order to free the other, Villanelle’s fingers toy with the hem of Eve's shirt, almost gently, in reverence. When she speaks her voice is low and smooth. “No,” Villanelle says as her gaze refuses to move from the bared skin. “No, Eve. you don’t. I’ve heard that before from people who meant it, from people who truly hated me. Trust me, I know the difference.” 

“I do,” Eve answers, even as she rolls her torso up in search of something, giving her consent for whatever is to come next. “I hate you. I fucking hate you,” she growls as though her life depends on it.  _ Jesus _ , she thinks distantly.  _ Maybe it does _ .

“No,” Villanelle replies as she pushes Eve’s top up her stomach, pausing only to shudder at the sight of her chest heaving and plain black bra exposed, the sound of her voice almost sweet. “No,” she echoes as she pulls it over Eve's head and crashes their mouths together hard enough for Eve to gasp in pain, the taste of it like  _ I love you _ . “No,” she breathes as she settles over Eve again and takes a breast in her hand, palming it roughly before she drops her head and buries her mouth in Eve’s cleavage, tongue and teeth marrying against her skin, the sound of it like  _ you love me too _ . “No,” she hums as she disposes of Eve's bra and closes her mouth over her again, rolling her tongue over a nipple. “No, Eve, you really don’t.” 

With a beat of silent communication in which when they both realise neither is going to run, Villanelle releases Eve’s hands in favour of tasting the curves of her body with her palms. They move down Eve’s neck, circle her throat and separate, one curving around a full breast and the other finding her hip, pressing that down into the mattress and readjusting one thigh between Eve’s rather than straddling her. 

With expertise born of dedicated and fastidious study, Villanelle transfers Eve’s breast from her hand to her mouth, sucking just hard enough to make Eve gasp before dragging her mouth back up the column of her neck. 

Eve’s hand finds the back of her neck when she settles over her pulse, curling into the soft, still slightly damp hair. She closes her hand into a fist when Villanelle’s teeth sink into the flushed skin of her throat, hard enough to be a few seconds away from bruising before she releases and runs a gentle, almost loving tongue over the red and throbbing mark left behind. 

As much as she tries to force the comparison out of her mind, Niko comes to her as a baleful spectre in the corner of the room, watching as Villanelle breathes more life into her in the space of two minutes than he could in fifteen years of marriage. It wasn’t ever a lack of attentiveness or enthusiasm. Only now, with Villanelle’s mouth on her neck does she realise everything she’s been missing out on, this red hot spark - no, flame - that Niko could never hope to hold in his hand let alone wield it with any skill that Villanelle can roll between her fingers like it’s an extension of her own body. 

There’s a very real risk of losing control here, a dangerous reality looming but as she watches Villanelle draw back long enough for the two of them to look over each other, she realises that this - not losing control but willingly forgoing it - was the path for them all along. That brings a sharp bite of reality to the situation and Eve freezes beneath Villanelle’s hands. 

Because  _ this _ , it’s good, it’s so good, it’s  _ too _ good. Oh, god, no, Eve realises. No, no, they can’t. Villanelle’s hand reaches for her hip with a gentleness Eve wasn’t even sure she was capable of and although the touch is meant to be reassuring it just makes her whole body spark like a fuse. It’s too good, every single touch is so fucking good. No, she thinks. They can’t. She wants this too much, far too much, so much that nothing else will ever suffice again. So much that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to say no to Villanelle after this and she knows Villanelle won’t be able to say no to her either. 

If they do this she’ll never be able to do anything ever again, they’ll never be able to do anything ever again, and there are things - Carolyn flashes in her head, Konstantin, Kenny - that still need to be done. It’s dangerous, she realises, how this feels. Then wonders with a trickle of hot guilt if this is what Villanelle has felt all along, this pull towards another person not herself. It allows her to see things with a completely different point of view, because for this she thinks she would revolt against authority, against reason, against law both natural and judicial. Because this feels so good, so very right she can’t think that anything in the world that could possibly be more natural, more authentic, more meant to be-

“Stop,” she says, breathless and broken when the sound runs alongside the pressure of Villanelle’s thigh against the seam of her pants. 

Villanelle does so immediately, freezes completely and lightens part of her weight and her hold over Eve. There’s an uncommon look of genuine concern on her face that almost makes Eve shake her head and ignore the fleeting moment of lucidity.

“What is it?” Villanelle replies in a low voice as she visibly surveys the room for any signs of disturbance, her ears pricking for the sound of something amiss. Noting nothing, she looks down at Eve with a barely-there frown. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Eve says, taking her hands off Villanelle’s hips and pushing her hair out of her face. Her palms linger, the heels of them pressing heavily against her closed eyes. Villanelle remains perfectly still above her, still straddling one of her thighs. The heat of her is intoxicating and distracting and grounding, and Eve has to shake her head to clear it. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. That’s the problem.”

“I don’t understand,” Villanelle replies, her frown deepening. 

The expression on her face is one of honest confusion and so soft, so not the Villanelle that she knows so well that it takes Eve a second to realise who she’s looking at, and whether she’s ever truly seen Oksana unfiltered and unscripted before. 

“We can slow down, Eve,” she says, filling the silence when Eve doesn’t. Her voice is smooth now, soothing, Villanelle and not Oksana but no less real for it. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just stop for a bit if that’s what you want.”

She chances reaching for Eve again then but not in the way that Eve had been expecting. The touch is sensual but not necessarily sexual, seductive without being assuming in any way, and so light that it makes Eve breathless when she pushes Eve’s hair off her forehead thoughtfully. 

_ I understand now _ , Eve thinks, sending a silent apology to Anna.  _ This is how it happens. This is how you fall for someone like her. This is how you give up everything for something you absolutely should not want _ . 

“No,” Eve says as her eyes and throat burn hot with tears. “I can't,” she whispers against her palms. “I can’t stay and not-“ she breaks off, moving her hands to rest on Villanelle’s thighs softly, torn between some strange desire to protect her from rejection and to leave some link unsevered between them even though she knows that walking away is the best thing she can do, for the both of them. “I can’t do this,” Eve says pushing herself up into a sitting position but leaving the other hand on the warm skin of Villanelle’s thigh. 

The movement causes Villanelle to shift on top of her, swinging her leg to the outside of Eve’s and moving back to put some space between them that Eve immediately wants to shuffle forward and close. She can see the way Villanelle determinately avoids glancing at Eve’s hand, as though the movement might cause her to take it away. She stares straight into Eve’s eyes instead, the contact almost a physical warmth to match the way their points of connection seem to glow and burn beyond plausible rationality. 

Her voice is low when she speaks, a little rough. “Why?” she asks simply, not quite hurt or demand but heavy nonetheless. 

“Because you’re right,” Eve answers, angry with the tear that she can’t catch before it slips, tumbling down her cheek. “I don’t hate you at all.”

Rather than smile with the admission, Villanelle’s face displays concern and the corner of her eyes pinch with it. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask another question, understands that it’s Eves place now to fill the quiet. 

“I should, but I don’t hate you, not even a little bit. I have to because this is too… “  _ dangerous, life-changing, impossible to walk away from _ . 

Not like this, she wants to say. Not yet. Not with so much still unknown. Not with so many people trying to poison what’s between us, not until we know why. Not while it feels like someone else still has a hand in why we’re both here. Not while we’re still bound to something that neither of us can see. Not until we have at least one hand free between us. Not while there’s something begging beneath the surface of you that hasn’t quite found the light. 

“It’s too good,” she says finally. “You’re too good,” she adds, reaching for Villanelle’s cheek. “I wouldn’t regret it in the morning. That’s the problem.”

Villanelle doesn’t say anything else, she just watches as Eve pulls herself away from the bed that feels like a space completely separate from space and time, that she could get lost in so deeply neither of them would ever be found. She watches soundlessly as Eve straightens her clothes and walks to the door. 

“Please be careful,” Eve says before she leaves the figure on the bed, so still and perfect she could be carved from stone. 

“Why?” Villanelle asks her, eyes hard and lips full and red and swollen. 

“Because I want you to be,” Eve says, truly means it, watches that realisation dawn on Villanelle’s face as it swells in her own chest, feels whatever was between them twist and change into something much deeper and more dangerous. Unflinching. Honest. Defiant. And then she turns, and without another word, leaves. 

Eve doesn’t go back to the apartment again, she can’t go somewhere where Villanelle might be able to find her, doesn’t trust either of their self-control. She doesn’t even bother to pack a bag. She can feel change poised and waiting and unstoppable, like a slow turning tide, something that will change the game forever, knock all the players over and start again. Almost reaching them, arms outstretched and straining to touch, almost lapping at her feet. 

But not yet. 

.


	3. three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She tries to shift into a more comfortable position but it just makes the pain worse and she hisses, tipping her head back onto the rim of the bathtub. “Look, can you just leave, please?” she asks without opening her eyes. “I’m tired, Eve. I can’t be bothered talking to a ghost. Even one that looks like you.”
> 
> “You just said I was alive,” Eve replies, finally crouching in front of her. “How can I be a ghost if I’m alive?”
> 
> “Don’t be stupid,” Villanelle growls in a low tone, watching Eve out of the edge of her vision but determinately not looking directly at her. “Plenty of people are alive and ghosts at the same time.”

.

v.

**Coram non judice.**

(before one who is not a judge)

_Villanelle_

  
  


She expects to see fear in her mother’s eyes in the last few moments of her life, but there’s nothing. It’s only black; already dead but backlit by the glow of others still-living around her. She squeezes her hands tighter around her mother’s neck, feels that familiar prickle start low in her belly when panic finally wins and blooms, the body’s last unconscious effort of fight a second before the light dims completely. She exhales deeply, waits for the inevitable euphoria to come, the rush of victory, but the rumble in her gut just subsides, shrinks, until it’s nothing at all, not even the white hum of silence. It’s just nothing. Nothing. _Nothing_. 

_No_ , Villanelle thinks, it’s not supposed to feel like this, it’s supposed to feel different, it’s supposed to feel like something, like anything, not like this, _no_ . Tears obscure the room around her but the screaming _nothing_ remains. _No, no, no, no, no_. 

She feels rather than sees her mother drop to the floor then follows a second later, landing hard on her knees, barely even feeling the skin split under the unforgiving wood. Tears stream down her cheeks as she starts pounding on the woman’s chest, not out of grief but born of pure fury instead. “No,” she hisses aloud. “Where is it?” she growls, barely able to control her volume. “You’re not allowed to rob me of this too, you don’t get to win, I get to win, I do, not you.”

Come back, she thinks as her fist thumps and bone creaks. Come back so you can die properly. Come back so you can give me what I want. Where is my satisfaction? Where is it? I’ve waited long enough. I win, not you. I win. I was supposed to win. 

Villanelle, or Oksana, or maybe everyone she’s ever been remains like that for a time, waiting for something to happen, to change, to make her _feel_ but it doesn’t come. Her mother lays dead on the floor, stealing things from her even at the last. 

It’s the first time in a very, very long time that the permanent emptiness hasn’t abated in her chest after a kill, the first time in a very long time that the act of taking a life hasn’t made her feel. She doesn’t understand it. She doesn’t like that she doesn’t understand it. Maybe her mother wasn’t like her at all. Maybe she had dark and no light and that’s why Villanelle couldn’t see the last of it leave. Maybe she wasn’t like her mother. Maybe she was much, much worse. 

The sensation reaches some kind of ceiling in her mind and then with the self-control that she knows so many think her completely incapable of, she murders the last part of herself that she thought belonged here, in this place, with these people, and she leaves it beside the lifeless body of the woman who was her mother in nothing more than biology, and she walks away. 

_Fine_ , Villanelle thinks, turning her head to the kitchen, where she saw a bottle of petrol earlier for the generator just outside. _Fine_ , she thinks as petrol slops over the floor, around her mother. It’ll be a funeral pyre she doesn’t deserve but it isn’t for her. It’s for _her_. It’s for Villanelle. It’s for _Oksana_. _Fine_ , she thinks, flicking all the hobs of the stovetop on, letting the gas spill out into the house. _Fine_ , she thinks as she strikes the match and feels the exact point of ignition like a beat of her own heart. _If you can’t give me that I want_ , _then_ _burn_. 

  
  


.

vi.

**Concerning the whole.**

_Villanelle_

  
  


“Jesus Christ,” a voice says, interrupting the stagnant silence broken only by Villanelle’s pained breathing. “What the hell happened to you?”

Still seated on the ground, back against the bathtub with her eyes squeezed shut and clutching her injured forearm just below the freshly clotting stab wound, Villanelle whines at the sound of Eve’s voice, closing her eyes against the impossibility of it. “You’re not real,” Villanelle groans, turning her head to the side away from the source.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Eve scoffs, sitting on the edge of the bathtub close enough that Villanelle can smell the scent of her cheap but reassuringly familiar shampoo. “Are you okay?” she asks, leaning down to glance at her arm hesitantly.

Villanelle really wants to swear and argue against the merits of having any kind of conversation with a ghost but she’s far too tired and the pain is too distracting and too much for her to turn off like she sometimes can if she concentrates hard enough. That, and the fact that the haze in her mind is just enough that she’s not completely convinced that Eve _isn’t_ here. Rationally, she knows it’s unlikely, but so was Eve turning up in Russia, so was Eve tracking Anna down, so was Eve following her to Rome, killing Raymond, _kissing_ her. 

Probable? No. But possible? Yes. Eve has shown her she’s far too unpredictable by now, far too reckless and erratic to guess the next move of, and that’s saying something for Villanelle to think as much. 

So, while she knows the apparition sitting next to her is likely that and nothing more, she’s also just desperate enough, just lonely enough, to want to believe it and pretend either way. Besides, she knows with a pitiful finality that the only person in the world that would bother, that _could_ be here is Eve. No one else cares. No one else wants her. Anger ripples up her spine and she directs it sideways because maybe Eve is here, but perhaps Villanelle might not have to be if Eve hadn’t left her in Rome and stayed gone for six whole months. 

“Am I okay? What does it look like, Eve?” she replies through clenched teeth, glaring at Eve and the stupid eyebrow that lifts at her tone. “And why do you care either way?”

Eve has the decency to look taken aback by her question and she gapes at Villanelle for a second, blinking away her surprise before speaking. “What do you mean, why do I care?”

“Well, because you’re not real for one,” Villanelle says matter-of-factly, interrupted before she can list a second point. 

“Think what you want; I feel pretty real to me,” Eve shrugs before pushing off the edge of the bath, walking to appraise herself in the mirror and prod absent-mindedly at a few of the small wrinkles that Villanelle has yearned to brush her fingers over for so long now. She looks back over her shoulder to prompt Villanelle when she doesn’t speak for a moment. 

“Fine,” Villanelle groans, staring maybe-Eve down hard before she answers finally, and even then speaking only because she is in a lot of pain and perhaps the sooner this conversation is over and maybe-not-Eve is gone she’ll pass out and not be in pain for a little while. “Fine,” Villanelle snaps, repeating the word like it’s a curse. “You don’t care because you were alive and you forgot about me. You were alive for half a year and you didn’t come and look for me once, not once. I had to learn from Konstantin, Eve. From someone else that wasn’t you because you left me.”

“You’re…. you’re joking right?” Eve sputters incredulously, whipping around to face her. 

The anger is palpable enough for Villanelle to squint and look closer because that expression she recognises all too well but doesn’t think even she knows it thoroughly enough to recreate it that perfectly. 

“I didn’t come looking for you?” Eve says as she paces in front of her, speaking more to the room than to Villanelle herself. She turns after a few more steps with a furious look on her face. “You shot me, Villanelle. Did you forget that? Why on earth would I look for you when it was a reasonably safe assumption for me to make that if I showed up on your doorstep you might just want to finish the job instead of welcoming me inside with open arms.”

Villanelle bristles, stiffens, feels pain shoot through her like another knife before she can school her muscles back away from tension. “Yes, well, you stabbed me first, and then you turned your back and left me and that hurt a lot as well, so I’d say that makes us even.” She tries to shift into a more comfortable position but it just makes the pain worse and she hisses, tipping her head back onto the rim of the bathtub. “Look, can you just leave, please?” she asks without opening her eyes. “I’m tired, Eve. I can’t be bothered talking to a ghost. Even one that looks like you.”

“You just said I was alive,” Eve replies, finally crouching in front of her. “How can I be a ghost if I’m alive?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Villanelle growls in a low tone, watching Eve out of the edge of her vision but determinately not looking directly at her. “Plenty of people are alive and ghosts at the same time. Anna was my ghost for many years. I was hers. I think I was yours too for a while, wasn’t I?”

The silence is deafening, Eve’s breathing barely audible. When she does speak the disturbance to the static quiet feels like a thunderclap and nearly makes Villanelle jump. She asks the question tentatively, almost as though in prayer. “Maybe. Was I yours?”

“Of course you were,” Villanelle says plainly. Because with everything that has passed between them as much should be obvious to Eve by now, surely. At this point, anything but the truth is a waste of energy. 

There’s another long pause as Eve considers her response. “What happened?” comes the next question from the figure still crouched in front of her, now frowning at the wound on Villanelle’s arm. 

She doesn’t say anything for a while and Eve doesn’t press her, not verbally anyway. Instead, she does something that takes Villanelle by surprise. With a casualness that could almost make a stranger seeing the exchange assume the gesture was something of well-practised ease and not the first time Eve has put a hand on her in anything other than anger or panic, she leans forward and places her palm on Villanelle’s forehead gently, testing the warmth of her skin. It’s so unexpectedly comforting that Villanelle groans when she lifts her hand away again, an odd heat moving over her skin in its wake as though trying to replicate the sensation of Eve’s touch. 

_Touch-starved_ , Anna used to say she was in a kind of explanation, a rationale as to why the girl who was Oksana could barely keep her hands off her once they started things. She thought it was a compliment at the time but she thinks now that Anna never meant it as one. Oksana used to think that the expression was kindness in Anna’s eyes but Villanelle is almost certain now, looking into Eve’s, that Anna’s was only ever pity. 

“Have you taken anything for the pain?” Eve asks her, sitting back in a crouch, balancing on the balls of her feet. 

Villanelle frowns at the utilitarian footwear now in her line of sight. If she lives she will take Eve shopping for shoes that are nowhere near as ugly as the ones she wears now. Comfort need not always be sacrificed for beauty. If she lives, maybe she will break into Eve’s depressing shitty apartment and burn all her things so she can buy everything new and beautiful. Eve would be furious at first, but she would thank her eventually. Maybe she’ll even keep a handful of things to indulge in nostalgia from time to time. She might hate what they look like after all, but she likes very much that they are Eve’s. 

“Villanelle,” Eve says firmly, forcing her train of thought away from future and back to present. The concern on Eve’s face makes her wonder if maybe she’d lost consciousness for a moment. “I said, have you had anything for the pain?”

This Eve is annoyingly rude enough to be real-Eve but she decides that she will replace real-Eve’s wardrobe if she lives whether this is a hallucination or not. Even if these aren’t real-Eve’s shoes and this isn’t real-Eve, she’s sure that real-Eve has a pair just like this somewhere and someone as breathtaking as Eve deserves to have breathtaking things. Konstantin calls it squandering but she calls it _living_. Assassins do not have a great life expectancy even if they are good ones and she can’t take savings or term deposits with her when she dies. 

“Villanelle,” Eve snaps, angry, as if she could actually hear the thought.

Groaning, Villanelle acknowledges her. “No,” she shakes her head weakly. Has she lost more blood? She feels very sleepy all of a sudden. Maybe it is Eve’s closeness. Whatever it is, she doesn’t want to dull her senses in the event that Eve is real, or risk dislodging the spectre if she isn’t. “I don’t want anything,” she tells Eve. “Don’t want to feel like I’m not in control.”

“Isn’t it better than this?” Eve asks her, looking to the bloody mess of her arm. 

“No,” Villanelle replies. “No, not if I need to leave. Run. I can’t afford to not have a clear head.”

“I don’t think being in this much pain will do you any good, either,” Eve says walking to the toilet bag open on the side of the sink, digging through it until she finds a small bottle of pills. 

“Eve,” she protests when two capsules appear in a palm right in the middle of her line of sight. 

“Villanelle,” Eve counters, holding out the glass she’d taken from the sink and half-filled with water while Villanelle had been counting seconds between each pained breath. 

“No,” she turns her head away. “I said I don’t want it,” Villanelle snaps finally when Eve perseveres, obviously intent on this course of action. “Just leave it, okay?”

“Fine. Idiot,” Eve grumbles, tipping the water out of the glass and sitting it back beside the sink. 

She can feel the weight of Eve’s attention as she stares determinately straight ahead. She’s not sure whether Eve is simply observing, watching for something, waiting for something, trying to memorise small details she had forgotten during their time apart, or more simply indulging in their proximity to each other. 

“I hated that bear, you know,” Eve says instead of anything relevant to the moment, evidently aware that Villanelle was not going to be shifted on the matter of pain relief. 

She’s leaning against the sink when Villanelle looks up from her position on the floor. Villanelle laughs harshly, but the sound comes across more certain and cynical than abrasive. “No, you didn’t,” she says with a few seconds of complete lucidity, looking directly at Eve. There are a lot of things she doesn’t understand but this, Eve’s denial of her own desire, her attempts at casual disregard when it comes close to admitting her feelings, _this_ she knows better than her own skin. “I made it especially for you,” she says wistfully. “Besides, it sounded like me, and I have a very beautiful voice,” Villanelle adds, enjoying the way Eve seems to squirm a little.

She can see Eve contemplating denial but in the end she laughs softly instead, surprising Villanelle again. “No,” Eve smiles. “Maybe I didn’t.” There’s a pause before Eve speaks, her question hesitant but firm, like she won’t be distracted from it again. “What happened?” 

Villanelle hates the way her heart flutters in response, she hates the way that she’s waited so fucking long to hear Eve speak to her that way, and now it’s finally happened and she’s probably hallucinating or dying or hallucinating _and_ dying, and she definitely looks awful, so not at all how she wanted to look when they finally-

“I made a mistake,” Villanelle says, mostly to cut off the torrent of thoughts inside her head. 

“You don’t make mistakes.” Eve’s reply is doubtful. Villanelle can hear the frown in her voice, even with her eyes closed. 

“No, I never _used_ to make mistakes,” Villanelle says curtly. She grimaces and clutches her arm again, just above the burning line of jagged red. 

It’s going to get infected, if it isn’t already, she just knows it; it’s already too hot and too angry, like her body is trying to rid itself of something, push something dangerous out. She would have sterilised the blade if she’d thought there was any chance of actually being harmed with it as a precaution but she doesn’t make mistakes, as Eve so bluntly put it, so hadn’t spared the action a second thought. 

Eve shifts from foot to foot, trying to remain balanced on the balls of her feet but swaying a little with the effort. “What changed?” she asks, watching carefully, searching for untruth or deceit.

Villanelle sighs, annoyed that she has to spell it out _again_ , hissing when the movement causes her more pain. “You know what changed, Eve,” she says simply. “You.” 

The crouched figure seems to stop breathing for a moment, no, suspends _all_ movement entirely. “I’m sorry,” Eve says, and for once, for the first time in the history of their relationship, she actually sounds it. 

Villanelle shakes her head. “Don’t be. It’s not just you. I was stupid to think I would be special to them forever. No one ever is, no matter how talented an asset you are. I thought I could be different. I thought I could be spec-“ 

Without her consent her voice fails and she bites back tears, the sound dying on a trembling lip when her pain crests and the wave breaks. She feels the room yawn with it, empty and black and so terrifying she wants to scream. She’s going to die like this, alone and in pain and full of regret that she never actually got to hold Eve against her naked skin, never got to show her Vienna in the summer or Switzerland in the winter or Paris in the autumn. None of it. Any of it really. She’s going to die alone with a bank account full of money and an empty wanting heart and oh, god, is this what _loneliness_ feels like?

She’s falling, drowning, flailing and then through darkness like pitch, a hand touches her arm. 

Grounding her, it slides down and takes the fingers below her poorly stitched wound, parting them gently to make room for a set that folds softly and settles between them, a touch that isn’t hers, and it’s so, _so_ real that this _can’t_ be a dream. 

Villanelle opens her eyes to see Eve sat next to her on the floor of this beautiful bathroom, with blood-stained gauze around them like plucked flower petals in a honeymoon suite. She looks down, sees Eve’s fingers intertwined with her own, sees Eve's other hand curled with a steadying but gentle firmness around her wrist as if trying to stop the pain from travelling any further into the palm of her hand. 

“Why are you being nice to me?” Villanelle asks with an exhausted sigh. “It doesn’t make any sense. You’re never nice to me. Even when we were partners. Actually, especially when we were partners. You only ever seem to want to hurt me even when I always do such nice things for you like buying you beautiful clothes and not killing your husband even though I really, really wanted to.”

Her question has the desired effect, bringing Eve up short. Eve’s never been the kind of person to soften when others need comfort, not from everything that Villanelle has ever been able to observe anyway. Eve is not that person; she doesn’t have time for pleasantries in a way that even Villanelle screws her nose up at because sometimes niceties are essential for basic manipulation and really, Eve should know that by now. While this sympathy feels very real, it also feels very out of character. 

She’d seen something like regret in Eve’s kitchen during their first meeting post-Paris but that still hadn’t been sympathy. She still hadn’t offered to apologise, she hadn’t been sorry. The touch had been genuine though, Eve’s palm on her cheek electric in a way that she knows Eve and her complete-and-utter-lack of any kind of poker face would be unable to fake. This feels like that, somehow; not soft, or sorry, but somehow still meaningful. Authentic in an intimate way. Real in a way that only they - the two of them - can show and understand. There are a lot of things, Villanelle thinks, that only she and Eve understand about one another. _Like us, you mean._

“Honestly?” Eve replies, so long after Villanelle speaks that she’s almost forgotten the question. “Because I’m too tired to think of a new and novel way to hurt you. I’m exhausted. And besides, even if I wanted to, someone’s already done that,” Eve says, glancing down to her arm again. “No fun in making more of a mess,” she adds, but it’s not harsh, her tone, it’s odd in a way that Villanelle can’t quite identify. Almost afraid, but not of her. _For_ her. 

“You don’t make any sense,” Villanelle groans in complaint, the fatigue in her voice almost the same melody as Eve’s. “I used to think I understood you, you know,” she says, rolling her head to the side to look at Eve. “But you don’t make sense anymore. Sometimes now I don’t think that I know you at all.”

Something pricks at the corner of Eve’s eyes, hot enough for her to notice it even through her unsteady vision. Defensiveness, maybe. No, something closer to need. 

_Oh_ , Villanelle realises. She _wants_ that. To be special. To be _known_. By her. 

Eve shifts next to her and for a second Villanelle thinks she might have said too much, might have done enough to make Eve withdraw in defence but to her surprise, she doesn’t release her grip on Villanelle’s hand or move away. “I think you do,” Eve says quietly, almost uncomfortably. “I think… I think that you do, more than anyone else does. More than anyone else ever bothered, anyway.” 

Something forms at the back of Villanelle’s mind then, settles just below the curve at the base of her skull. It’s a question she’s never been able to find an answer to, not a satisfactory one anyway, not one that resonates with Oksana even if it could fool Villanelle. “Why did you see me?” Villanelle asks her. “Nobody else ever did, not until I _made_ them look, not until I made it so they couldn’t look away.”

Eve’s face is carefully blank. “Anna saw you,” she suggests.

Villanelle scoffs, old wounds splitting open and bleeding as freely as the fresh one at Eve’s suggestion, bright and beautiful and new. “No,” she says evenly. “Anna saw an escape to her boring marriage and stale sex life. Anna saw danger but she didn’t want to see all of me. When I made it so she didn't have a choice to ignore everything, she didn’t want me anymore,” Villanelle says hotly. “Everyone else sees what they want. Oksana the murderer, Villanelle the killer, dispensable, deniable, replaceable. Everyone except you.” She looks at Eve, truly looks and tries to see through her spectre but it’s solid, impermeable and unrelenting like ice. “You see it all, and yet you’re still here. You’ve never asked me to change like they have. You see all of me and so you _really_ should have run a long time ago but you didn’t. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Eve says honestly, taking a fresh pad of gauze out of a sterile packet as she talks, easing Villanelle’s hand away from the wound and pressing it gently over the stitches careful not to disturb them. “There was something about you that I… I don’t even know. But there was something. You made me so curious that I couldn’t look away even when I didn’t know what I was looking at; you made me feel alive. I don’t know what it was but god, there was - _is_ \- something.”

“Do you want to now?” Villanelle asks as she takes a deep breath and reaches for Eves’s hand, covering the gauze over the wound. “Run?”

“No,” Eve says, replacing her hand applying pressure with Villanelle’s, then reaching up to tuck a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “I don’t.” Villanelle looks and Eve looks right back. “Do you want me to?”

Villanelle shakes her head again. “No,” she replies, tongue sweeping out over dry lips. “No, I don’t want you to run.”

“What do you want?” Eve asks her, eyes and mind open. 

Villanelle swallows around another resonance of pain, wrestles with the words before she can gather enough control to speak. “I want out,” she says finally, barely more than a whisper, which is okay because Eve is very close to her now, pressed into her side, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. The closeness is a comfort so foreign that it sends her spinning and suddenly she’s drowning, drowning in pain and panic and a sensation of loneliness so deep she thinks the agony of it might kill her. 

“Please, Eve,” she says, turning to press her forehead into Eve’s shoulder desperately. “I’m just so tired it hurts, everything hurts and I want out,” she breathes. “I want out,” she sobs as Eve leads her head down into her lap, hushing her gently when she starts to cry harder. “Please, please Eve; I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“It’s going to be alright,” Eve says, not answering her question, placing her palm across the nape of Villanelle’s neck holding her steady. 

“No,” Villanelle replies with a certainty that both of them will struggle to fault. “No, Eve. It's not. Haven’t you been paying attention to any of this? This isn’t a desk job with MI6; I don’t get to resign, I don’t get to turn down the next order. There’s only one way I leave them, only one. When they take you in you’re too desperate to say no, even though you know that this is how it ends but dying in a thousand dollar a night hotel sounds better than dying of exposure down a filthy Moscow side street. They make you greedy, they make you forget about where you came from and make you forget to be grateful for even ugly broken things. They make you forget that there’s only ever one way to leave this job once you’re in it. I don’t want to die, Eve. Not now. But I don’t want to kill anyone anymore and I can’t have both of those things.”

Eve says nothing because there’s nothing she can say. The truth is so deafening that it almost hurts more than the act of metal biting through skin. The only thing that stops her from relinquishing her hold on her consciousness is the fierce grip on her shoulder and the soft hand stroking her hair. She doesn’t do it _for_ Eve though, she doesn’t do it to assuage Eve’s worry in any way because she really doesn’t have the strength for that nor does she think Eve would want her to; she does it _because_ of her. 

Maybe that’s what this has been about all along, digging down and cracking into whatever she can feel now that she couldn’t before. None of it is for Eve, she hasn’t hidden or obscured any part of herself, she hasn't changed in an attempt to conform to what Eve wants her to be, but something in her chest has opened and every small subtle shift, every single change, every twitch of muscle she can trace back to Eve. 

Eve, noticing her. Eve, looking for her. Eve, pursuing her. Eve, seeing her. Eve, _choosing_ her. 

She’s never been to confession before. She’s killed people in a church, and she’s felt the dull ache of wood pressing painfully into her shins with her hands wrapped around the soft thighs of women twice her age, but she’s never done so at an altar that wasn’t a warm female body. She’s never told anyone about every single one of her kills, not even Konstantin. Here, now, with her head in Eve’s hands and her life slowly sleeping through the bandage heavy with rich, deep red, she wonders if this is the closest thing she’ll ever do that approaches that. She wonders morbidly if being with Eve, who knows all of her sins and looks them dead-on, who refuses to flinch or look away, is the closest she’ll ever come to absolution. She wonders if Eve is the only person alive who could look at them all and not turn away in disgust. 

Maybe that’s what makes her speak as though she’s about to die even though she knows she has a few more litres of blood left to lose before that really becomes an issue. Complication from infection is far more likely, she knows that with an intimate certainty. She laughs to herself; fear of dying with secrets left unexposed like wealth unspent: maybe that's the only reason that anybody ever confessed anything at all. 

“I do love you,” she says between clenched teeth, pressing herself into Eve, her forehead fitting neatly into the curve of thigh and hip. God, it hurts to speak now but she needs to tell Eve this. She needs Eve to hear it. “You said that I didn’t, in Rome. That I couldn’t, but I do. Even if you don’t believe me, I do. I think I do in a different way now but it was still love back then even if you didn’t think it was.” _Or_ , she thinks, _even if you didn’t want to believe it was._

“I know,” Eve says with an almost unsettling calm, running her fingers through Villanelle’s hair, combing it back behind her ear. There’s something different in her voice when she speaks. Acceptance. Something else too. Maybe… fear. Or reciprocity? 

_Or both_. 

Confession is supposed to be about exposing weakness to make yourself feel better, she thinks she remembers Konstantin saying once when she asked him why anyone ever bothered in the first place. She thinks her conclusion is much more likely but there might be some truth in what he says too. Regardless, pride seems less important now, she thinks, and besides, Eve already knows exactly what her underbelly looks like. Eve's fingers are so gentle against her scalp that the sensation is almost harder to bear than the pain. Eve is silent and she wonders whether she had said that out loud too. It’s getting harder to tell and her eyes feel heavier with each breath. It doesn’t matter, she decides. She knows that the shake of her muscles give that truth away without needing words to confirm it. She doesn’t bother to hide it. What’s the point. Maybe confession is more about relinquishing pride or ego than it is about showing weakness. 

“What about you?” she asks, ignoring the way she sounds pathetically desperate even to her own ears and focussing instead on the movement of Eve’s body beneath her head as she breathes slowly. 

Eve shifts, leaning down and bringing Villanelle closer, nearer to the beating of her heart. “What about me?” Eve replies. 

Ego or no, she still curses the shake of her voice when she speaks. “Do you love me, too?”

The silence is deafening and Villanelle feels tears prick at the corner of her eyes as Anna’s voice fills her head. _Monster. No one will ever love you_. She’s about to pull herself from the warmth of Eve's body when finally, she speaks. 

“What do you think?” Eve says cryptically enough that Villanelle has to bite back the scream of frustration. “Close your eyes,” she adds more soothingly, running her hands through Villanelle’s hair as though trying to manage that sting of rejection. “Get some sleep.”

“Not until you tell me,” Villanelle groans, irritable and impatient for the response. “I need to hear it, Eve. I need to hear you say it.”

She feels Eve huff with an impatience of her own but the exhale turns into a sigh of reluctant acceptance and there’s a sound like the beginning of a word that could provide stability rather than burn everything to the ground but before she can listen for the answer, the illusion shatters like a thin crystal champagne flute against marble and Villanelle wakes. 

The horrendous jolt into reality makes her stomach roll and bile rise before she registers her head pressed into the towel draped over the side of the bathtub. It was a dream. It wasn’t real. Eve is gone. Eve’s ghost is gone, and she’s alone. All alone. Only ever alone. Save for her tears, that is. Her stupid pathetic tears. 

Crying is for children, her father always used to say before he struck her when he was teaching her how to fight. And you don’t want to be a child anymore, do you? 

Fuck him, she thinks, hissing when the effort of staying upright becomes too much and she pulls the towel onto the floor and falls roughly, not bothering to cushion the movement. Fuck all of them. She doesn’t need them. She doesn’t. The harsh change in her position tugs painfully at the stitches and her hand comes away bloody again when she tests it with a shaky touch. _I don’t want to do this anymore_ , she says to no one because she’s alone, alone, _always_ alone. Closing her eyes she feels the tears roll down her cheek before they disappear into the cotton weave of the towel. She curls her knees into her chest, clenches her teeth until she can taste blood, touches the stitches and prods hard until she feels consciousness wane dangerously. 

Like a flickering light, Eve appears as soon as her lucidity leaves. She moves for Villanelle with an urgency that gives her some deep throb of satisfaction even if this isn’t real. 

“Get me out,” she says to Eve's ghost, shifting into solidity and crouching low in concern, reaching and calling for her just as her eyes shut. “Please, Eve,” she begs into blackness a second before she loses consciousness. “Please. I want you to get me out.”

  
  


.

vii.

**The easy way out.**

_Villanelle_

  
  


The knock on her hotel room door some hours after leaving the great hall with glinting clean lines of steel that made Villanelle’s palms itch with the desire to take them and test the weight, isn’t a surprise. She’s not sure whether it’s a welcome or unwelcome visit either, not even after the door is open and Hélène stands in front of her with her jacket draped over her arm and her makeup almost worn off from the weight of the day. 

There are more lines around her eyes than Villanelle had noticed before, not that she minds. It makes Hélène more attractive if anything. More detestable, or claimable. More real.

She doesn’t speak first, waiting instead for Hélène to give the explanation or justification for her presence, taking the time to survey the way she holds herself, the fine lines of her expensive clothing, the deep colour of her eyes. Hers is a rich power, born of affluence and privilege. It reminds her oddly of Carolyn, even though she’s only met the woman a handful of times. Self-assured and confident, neither seeking nor needing the approval of others. 

“I wanted to make sure you were settled in comfortably,” Hélène offers when it becomes apparent that Villanelle isn’t going to break the silence. 

“Is this a service you offer to all your employees?” Villanelle asks sharply. “Or am I a guest?” _No_ , she thinks to herself after speaking. _I am a prisoner, even if this room is not the cage_. 

“Is this room not to your satisfaction?” Hélène asks, looking over Villanelle’s shoulder to the plush carpet and expensive furniture that reflects the luxury of her temporary home for the next few days. 

“No, the room is just fine,” Villanelle replies simply, allowing a smile to give away her amusement at Hélène’s obvious annoyance. 

“Perhaps you would prefer me to leave you to your evening,” Hélène says with a sigh, not bothering to wait for an answer before she turns on her heel. 

“Why?” Villanelle says, no particular urgency in her voice even after Hélène takes a few steps away from her. 

It looks for a moment as though Hélène won’t turn around but something, be it curiosity or stubbornness, makes her pivot back and catch Villanelle’s eye with a hard but unspoken question. With a sweeping motion of her arm, Villanelle steps back and gestures Hélène back in, taking a step closer to her when she passes, intimidation and her own curiosity equal drivers. 

“Would you like a drink?” Hélène asks without turning back, walking to the fridge and pulling out the bottle of champagne that Villanelle hadn’t bothered to open yet. 

“Sure,” Villanelle answers, shrugging. She closes the door and leans her weight against it as she watches Hélène move around the room with the familiarity of someone who seems to know exactly where everything is. She’s either remarkably intuitive or she’s been here before, and more than once. 

“This is often my room,” Hélène says in answer when she catches the expression on Villanelle’s face. “The view is much better than my other, but I thought you might enjoy it.”

“Generous,” Villanelle answers a little sceptically. She accepts the champagne flute when Hélène hands it to her and watches while Hélène takes the first sip, unable to stop the way her eyes find the curve of the woman’s neck with she shuts her eyes and tips her chin back in pleasure, savouring it.

She takes the additional moment to continue to survey the woman in front of her. Older? Yes. Powerful? Certainly. Stronger? Villanelle isn’t sure. A lot of people say that to her, that they’re better than her and a lot of people are wrong. There is a wiriness in Hélène’s frame though, and the way that she holds herself like a panther feigning nonchalance but ready to pounce with the smallest hint of danger that makes Villanelle’s skin prickle and spark in spite of herself. 

It’s not that she isn’t attracted to Hélène because she definitely is; she’s beautiful after all, every inch Villanelle’s type but there’s something making her wary, hesitant; she feels like this attention is just another distraction tool and there’s already so much noise in her head, swirling and churning in a way that she’s never had to try and wade through before. She wants to be reckless now, after Romania, but she knows that she needs to be careful. Watchful. Because the noise is _loud_ , and she doesn’t know whether she’ll be able to concentrate on the threat if and when it does materialise. 

Maybe it doesn’t matter, she thinks to herself. Maybe this isn’t such a bad way to go, naked in Hélène’s bed with her hands around Villanelle’s neck. Maybe she’ll even pull her punches if it comes to blows. Maybe she’ll even make it a little easier for the other woman to finish her off. She doesn’t think she wants to die but surely this is better than being gutted in a dark backstreet by some foul-breathed knife for hire before he leaves her to bleed out alone. Maybe she was always meant to die with the softness of a woman’s skin against her own and the smell of barely-sated desire intertwined with her perfume. 

Mind mostly made up, she knuckles down the urge to show Hélène the door and takes a long gulp of champagne, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand when she drains the last drop from the glass. 

“Another?” Hélène asks, one eyebrow raised in question. 

Villanelle holds out her glass in lieu of an actual answer, waiting until both her and Hélène’s glasses are full before she speaks. “You have a daughter?” she says in statement, not in question. 

“You sound surprised,” Hélène replies, agilely not missing a step despite the sharp change in topic. 

“I am,” Villanelle says bluntly. 

“Konstantin has a child, does he not?” Hélène questions. “And Dasha too.” She pauses seeing the scepticism on Villanelle’s face. “They do not mind,” Hélène offers, smiling, seemingly enjoying Villanelle’s unsettled frown. “Children often make for a convenient cover, and are a convenient way to make sure we follow the rules too.” 

“Is that why you had one?” Villanelle asks sharply. 

It’s Hélène’s turn to withhold an answer then. When she speaks her voice is more formal, expectant. Authoritarian. “I know that you killed your mother, Villanelle,” she says. “Why?” 

The toss of a coin often determines Villanelle’s response to authority. She either submits willingly or she rebels violently and the response is often withheld from even her until the moment she acts. 

Hélène must see this flicker of gasoline in Villanelle’s eyes because before Villanelle can throw a punch or smash the glass against a hard surface and sink the jagged edge into the inviting curve of Hélène’s neck, everything about the other woman softens, becomes inviting and knocks Villanelle off-guard just long enough for her to twist her fingers around the crystal stem and wait. Damn, she thinks to herself, appraising Hélène’s quickness. She is good. 

“I meant it when I said I want us to tell each other everything,” Hélène says to Villanelle gently. “I’m not going to punish you. No one is, I promise you. I just want to understand why. If she upset you, did something to harm you, perhaps I can help.”

The aim is manipulation but there’s just enough genuine concern to halt the cynical laugh that Villanelle has between her teeth. “Nice sentiment. I’m a little lacking in trust at the moment. I’m sure you understand,” comes her dry, wary response. 

Hélène nods thoughtfully. “I do,” she says. “What would you need to trust me, do you think?”

The question, while patient, is almost too much so, bordering on pandering and something about it rubs Villanelle up the wrong way. “Enough. Tell me the truth,” Villanelle replies sharply when her patience snaps. “Stop feeding me bullshit. Bullshit is boring and you won’t like it when I get bored.”

A calculation of danger moves across Hélène’s eyes that is so familiar to Villanelle she can read every inch of it. She’s not scared or threatened by the whip-like outburst though, her face shows only impassive acceptance. 

“Alright. What would you like to know?” Hélène says calmly, as though this behaviour is not only acceptable but expected which only makes Villanelle want to burn down this room with hotter, quicker flames. She doesn’t obscure the truth though, or try to distract her, just barely stopping Villanelle from reaching for the matches. 

“What’s your real name?” Villanelle asks first. A simple request, but a direct test as well. If she lies, Villanelle will know and will gauge the truth of all her further questions with ease. 

There’s a pause, long enough that Villanelle thinks the other woman is not going to give up this piece of information, that she might refuse to relinquish that small truth and quite possibly sign her own death warrant with the same stroke of the pen. 

“Céline,” she says finally, turning her chin away like she’s ashamed to look that other version of herself in the eye. When she turns back to Villanelle the mask is back but loose enough for the words to be true. She’s defiant when she speaks again, slipping it properly into place. “But it’s not my real name anymore.”

“Why not?” Villanelle asks, genuinely interested. “Why don’t you use that?”

Hélène looks at her with an unflinching stare. “Why don’t you use Oksana anymore?”

The laugh Villanelle admits is harsh but she nods her head in acknowledgement all the same. “Do you love your daughter?” she asks in contemplation. 

“I do.” Hélène’s gaze remains steel, hard and unwavering. “Why do you ask?”

Villanelle presses on, not answering the question. “More than you love yourself?”

It’s Hélène’s turn to laugh harshly then. “I don’t think so, no,” she answers Villanelle. “Why, does that upset you?”

“My mother was very selfish,” Villanelle tells her with a resentful sharpness on the tip of her tongue. “I wonder if you are maybe like her. I didn’t like her very much because of that.”

“I have never met her so I cannot say for certain but I hope that I am not like her and I hope that you will allow me to show you that. How did you want her to be different?”

It’s a clever choice of words, Villanelle thinks. Blameless. Guilt directed at her mother, not at her. She wonders if Hélène had practised this conversation or whether she’s really just this good. Probably the latter, she thinks. The Twelve sometimes suffer fools lower down in their ranks but they don’t have time for that with those higher up. Hélène must be good at something, at many things, just to hold her place in their hierarchy. 

“How do I know this isn’t just more manipulation,” Villanelle says, setting her glass down and crossing her arms over her hips. “I am done with lying, you know. But I know that The Twelve are so very good at it.” 

“I am not stupid enough to lie to you, Villanelle,” Hélène says with such bluntness that Villanelle finds it impossible to not take the statement at face value. “I have seen what you do to people that lie to you. Life is not always easy, but I am fond of what I have. I am strong. I have power and influence, but 

I am not so foolish to underestimate you.” She stands still for a moment, watching Villanelle carefully in a way that they may as well be circling lions. “I think that is what your mother did, am I correct? She underestimated what you would do when she betrayed you.”

It’s not precisely correct, but it is part of the root of things. The lack of her admitting where Villanelle had truly come from was a part of it. _I came from you, mama_ , she thinks sending an errant thought to her mother, _but my darkness was more than you could ever have imagined. It eclipsed yours, smothered yours, which you would have seen if you ever truly looked at me._

“I promise you that I am nothing like your mother,” Hélène says gently, taking a step closer. “I have seen what you are capable of, ma chérie, and I know that all of what I have seen is not even half of it.” 

She takes another step closer when Villanelle appears to accept the increased proximity, setting her own glass down so she can raise both hands empty and in supplication to Villanelle. She gestures to Villanelle’s arm. “Will you show me? I might be able to help. I was a doctor, once. A very long time ago.”

Villanelle hesitates for a moment but accepts the attention after another long hard intrusive look at Hélène, shrugging out of the robe she had thrown on at the knock of the door, leaving her in a plain black singlet tucked into skin-tight black denim pants. She feels herself stiffen in anticipation when Hélène reaches for the bandage covering her forearm but that touch when it comes is surprisingly gentle. Her hands are firm and sure and have the practised ease of someone who has done this many, many times. 

“I have supplies to redress this,” Hélène tells her as she unwraps the bandage slowly and carefully before discarding it, revealing the angry red line of stitches. “Next time this happens, let me help. This will do the job of closing the wound of course, but it’s going to scar.” She looks at Villanelle with a medical expert's scowl before testing the edge of the wound with a light prod, trying to gauge whether the heat is an infection or just inflammation. “Have you started a course of antibiotics yet?” 

“Are you just going to treat me like I’m stupid?” Villanelle grumbles, moving to yank her arm roughly out of Hélène’s grip. 

The other woman’s reaction time is quick, quicker than Villanelle was expecting, and her fingers close hard and vice-like around her wrist before she can move more than an inch or so away. She tenses the muscles of her forearm under Hélène’s grip, feels the strength ripple out from the palm of her hand, unflinching and surprisingly, almost shockingly, strong.

“I’m not trying to make you feel stupid,” Hélène says, making a show of releasing Villanelle’s hand, almost like a wolf might release the neck of a doe, interrupted out of the animalistic instinct of capturing prey. “I am sorry if I made you feel that way. I was worried, but I shouldn’t have been. You have proven over and over that you can take care of yourself, of course.” 

She sighs with a sound that might be an apology. “I know that you do not need it,” Hélène says very carefully. “But do you want it?” She pauses, trying again to read Villanelle’s reaction. “When was the last time someone took care of you?” She asks finally. “Someone who truly wanted to take care of you, I mean.”

Clawing back some dignity, Villanelle laughs dismissively. “I thought I was a monster,” she says looking directly at Hélène, suddenly feeling all wolf, no trace of doe left for miles, none to be found in any corner of the forest. Only predators, she thinks sharply; there are only predators here, and…. “Monsters don’t need caring for, do they?”

“Everyone needs caring for,” Hélène says with enough meaning that _again_ , despite reason, Villanelle believes her. 

“Why are you really here?” Villanelle asks her, taking her arm back, seeking some clarity of mind that she hopes the absence of Hélène’s touch will provide. “Here, in my room I mean.” It’s odd, she notes when she rubs at the bare skin, it’s strangely intoxicating, the lingering feeling of her, in a way that even Anna’s wasn’t. Maybe that’s it, she muses. Maybe that’s why she is as high as she is within their ranks. Siren’s touch. 

“I already told you,” Hélène says after she evaluates Villanelle’s body position and the way she seems to be either trying to replicate the touch on her arm, or rid herself of the sensation. “I wanted to check that you were comfortable.” Her eye narrows and something changes in her expression. Less soft but more authentic. “Do you know why you inspire obsession, Villanelle?”

A faint sense like death passing brushes the back of her neck and the hair there bristles as though touched by something not natural for this plane of existence. “Is that why you’re here?” Villanelle asks sharply, eyes subtly searching for any sign of danger that she might have missed with the first sweep of the room. “You’re obsessed with me?” 

She finds nothing though, only the low hum of noise from the outside world and Hélène’s soft, patient breathing.

“In a way, yes,” Hélène says simply, surprising her. “There’s something about you, something that radiates from you. Something I just want to drink in. I don’t know how else to describe it but it’s excruciatingly tempting.” 

Her line of sight is hard and sharp when Villanelle meets it, a clear challenge. Not only a siren, Villanelle thinks. She has the unflinching iron of a god too. “You’re old enough to be my mother,” Villanelle says in a clear return challenge.

“Perhaps, but not quite I think. Does that bother you?” Hélène asks. Villanelle can see the rest of the sentence written on her face although she’s smart enough at least not to say it out loud. _Anna was older though, wasn’t she? And Eve too, I imagine. Being older has never bothered you before, Oksana. Villanelle._

Villanelle shakes her head with an emotionless expression on her face. “No,” she says. “Does it bother you?”

“Not at all,” Hélène returns. 

She crosses her arms over her chest and the defiance makes something strike hot in Villanelle’s gut. Unconsciously, she mirrors the movement, forgetting about the lack of covering over her wound. One of her stitches pulls painfully, and she hisses in surprise. 

“I’m sorry that you’re in pain,” Hélène says and means it. She takes a step forward and then waits as Villanelle uncrosses her arms in a movement of acceptance before taking another and moving back into Villanelle’s personal space. “Will you let me redress it?” 

That spark in her gut tumbles over end on end, warming as it moves down to her toes in the wake of Hélène’s offer. She has to physically fight the way her entire body seems to want to strain forward towards the warmth offered, unable to turn it down completely but unwilling to show how desperate for gentle contact she truly is. “I can’t leave it like this, can I?” she says with a sharp bite. 

“Sit down on the bed,” Hélène says without acknowledging the venom in Villanelle’s voice. “I’ll get my things.” 

She slips almost soundlessly from the room and is back before Villanelle can concentrate properly on whatever movie is playing on the television in the background. Hélène closes the door behind her with her heel, already undoing the closure on the small leather bag in her hands before she reaches Villanelle perched on the end of the bed. She sets the bag down next to Villanelle, not speaking as she removes from it the supplies she needs, only opening voicing something when Villanelle starts rummaging through the bag at her leaving to wash her hands quickly in the bathroom sink. 

“Everything in that bag is very expensive,” Hélène says without looking at her, disinfecting her hands with some clear liquid once they’re dry.

“I have a lot of money,” Villanelle replies, thoughtlessly unsheathing a small sterilised scalpel, testing its sharpness with the point of her finger and stopping just short of piercing the skin. She looks at Hélène now lining up some fresh gauze pads next to a gleaming set of needles. “Do you provide back-alley medical services to many people?” 

“Only the ones I’d rather not see die,” Hélène tells her. “Don’t allow that to confuse my position though, Villanelle,” she adds when she catches the smug expression that must slip onto Villanelle’s face. “I meant what I said before. Just because I want to help you, does not mean I won’t hesitate to kill you if I need to.”

“Do you really think that you could?” Villanelle asks with genuine curiosity. 

There isn’t a response given verbally but Hélène’s answer is clear in the strength of her jawline and the confidence with which she moves to another topic altogether. “I want to restitch this,” she says, kneeling in front of Villanelle, her expression efficient and somewhat detached. “If I don’t, the tissue is going to heal poorly and will scar much worse than it would if I were to close it more neatly. I can clean it properly for infection too.”

“Will it heal faster?” Villanelle asks with a frown. “If you do?”

Hélène shrugs as she turns Villanelle’s forearm from side to side, assessing her untidy handiwork closely. “Yes, it should. If the muscle is torn at all I can stitch that as well. If we do nothing and it is, it will take much longer. Be more painful.”

Villanelle wriggles her fingers experimentally, wincing when something catches. She won’t admit it but she knows that it gives her more discomfort than it should, even disregarding the infection. “Will it hurt?” she asks in a tone that sounds foreign even to her own ears. Not quite fearful, but hesitant. Wary. 

“Not if I give you something before I start,” Hélène answers, looking up at the change in the sound of her voice, her expression almost gentle. 

Something snaps, vulnerability whipping back into place. “No,” Villanelle says firmly, shaking any vestige of weakness with the assertion. “I don’t want any drugs.” 

There’s a finality present that Hélène doesn’t question, only shrugs in acknowledgement of. “Then yes, it will,” she tells Villanelle. “But I am quick. It won’t take longer than a few minutes.”

Villanelle’s knee bounces erratically as she contemplates her choices. Only it’s not really a choice. Not really. She can already feel the misalignment of muscle and flesh and the way her body seems trying to reject the incorrect path of healing. If she doesn’t, this will be worse for her in the long term. What is the long term for an assassin though, she thinks to herself with a rueful scowl. Five years? Ten? Still, she admits, if it is the difference between losing a fight she should have won and not, it is important. For her pride if not for her longevity. 

“Fine,” Villanelle says with a scowl, holding her arm out to Hélène. “Do what you want.”

“Thank you, Hélène, would be a better response, Villanelle,” she says in dry, sarcastic french, leaning back on her heels. “I’m not obliged to do anything at all. You understand that, don’t you?”

Villanelle’s pride almost wins out. Almost. “Fine,” she snaps when Hélène is a second from pulling away and retracting her offer of help. “Fine, thank you,” she says with a reluctant growl. “Happy?”

“My happiness is irrelevant,” Hélène says, ignoring the fierce look in Villanelle’s eyes when she fails to rise to her bait. “Are you sure you don’t want anything for the pain?” she asks again. “I have something that will provide some local relief but it would be much better if you took something stronger. If you move while I am restitching it, it will be more difficult for me to make this tidier.” 

“I won’t move,” Villanelle replies proudly, lifting her chin and looking at Hélène defiantly. 

“Very well,” Hélène says, twisting the cap off of the anaesthetic cream in her hands. “Are you ready?”

Villanelle nods her consent, lifting her arm when Hélène takes a pillow and sets it on her lap to create a higher, more level platform. She doesn’t move from her place on her knees in front of Villanelle, she only shifts from side to side to find the most comfortable position before reaching for a sterile square and setting that under Villanelle’s forearm completing the stage for her minor remedial procedure. 

Hélène begins by rubbing the creamy numbing agent over and around the wound, the sting of it making Villanelle clench her jaw before the medicinal properties get to work and the pain subsides a little. It dulls the pinch when Hélène starts to remove the rough stitches but it does little to hold back the wave of nausea when the cut splits open again at the removal of the last piece of thread and starts to bleed again, or when Hélène thoroughly cleans the site with something that smells strong and antiseptic. 

“If you’re going to be sick, turn your head,” Hélène says, reaching behind her and pulling a small rubbish bin that Villanelle hadn’t even noticed in the room apparently from thin air.

“I’m fine,” Villanelle grits through achingly-clenched teeth. 

“You’re pale and your heart is beating too fast,” Hélène says, pausing for just a moment, covering the wound with a fresh gauze pad and applying pressure to staunch the new bleeding. Her hand is warm, reassuring over the pallid skin of Villanelle’s arm. “You need to steady your breathing, Villanelle, or you’re going to faint.”

“I’m fine,” Villanelle asserts tensely, shaking her head and closing her eyes for a second when the room spins. “I’m not weak.” 

“No, but your body is,” Hélène tells her firmly. “I think I should wait until the morning to finish. I can bind it for the time being, dress it with temporary stitches, and do the rest when you’re up to it tomorrow.”

“No,” Villanelle says. “Finish it now.” She holds Hélène’s hard glare, reaching for her wrist when Hélène moves slightly on the balls of her feet, still kneeling. “Finish it now, or I’ll do it again myself.”

“No one is going to hurt you here tonight,” Hélène tells her, reading between the lines of fear that Villanelle will never actually admit exist in her voice. “I promise you that. I’ll even stay with you, if that will put your mind at ease.”

“I don’t need to be placated,” Villanelle snaps. _Liar,_ Anna’s voice loops in her head. “I don’t,” she says to Hélène and to Anna and Eve because she’s never far from Anna’s ghost nowadays. “What I need is for you to keep going and finish what you started.”

She draws in a deep breath and braces herself for more of an argument but Hélène’s acceptance of her stubborn refusal comes more quickly than she’s expecting. 

“Very well,” Hélène sighs, removing Villanelle’s hand patiently from her wrist so she can lift the gauze and continue her work. “But this is going to be worse than the first part. Are you sure?” 

Villanelle nods, tensing the muscles of her stomach before she motions with her chin for Hélène to continue. Hélène isn’t a liar, Villanelle learns this with a distinct clarity over the course of this evening. She was right about the cream, it doesn’t help with more than the initial scratch of the needle through the very top part of her skin; she was right about the removal being the easy part too because by the time the needle pushes through a second time, she’s doing everything she can to stay still and not squirm in pain. 

“I change my mind,” Villanelle says irritably after the third tidy stitch is tied off. “I want something for the pain now.”

“It’s too late,” Hélène tells her, not looking up until she has the needle poised and ready again. “You’ll just bring it back up if I give you something now.” When Villanelle starts to tremble slightly, the line of her shoulders changes and her expression softens and her tone changes. “Do you want me to stop?”

“How much longer?” Villanelle asks weakly. 

“Five minutes at the most,” Hélène replies after appraising the half-finished job in front of her. She waits until Villanelle gives her a final exhausted nod of the head before she sets to work again, moving more swiftly than before but with the same accurate sweep of her fingers as she twists and pivots the needle. 

“Why does this hurt more than the first time?” Villanelle asks her, trying to concentrate on the rich expensive perfume filling the space between them and the soft puff of breath every few seconds as Hélène works with an attractive and practised ease, instead of on the pain. 

“Shock is a marvellous medication,” Hélène answers with a sly grin. “The human body is far more resilient than most give it credit for. But” - she pauses - “it does have its limits.” 

She really is beautiful, Villanelle accepts as she wills her mind to concentrate harder on the gloss of her hair and the sharp line of her jaw. And strong, she adds watching the way she barely acknowledges the discomfort that must be evident now after so long spent on her knees without moving to stretch out her legs. She is, thankfully, also as efficient as promised, and within five minutes the wound is nearly stitched, cleaned and wrapped, allowing Villanelle to take a deep breath, snatch up the small bin and vomit neatly into it without missing a beat. 

“You did well,” Hélène says as she pulls Villanelle’s hair away from her face, tying it back before rubbing gently between her shoulder blades. 

“I told you I wouldn’t move,” is all Villanelle can manage before she tips sideways, feels the room spin and the bed catch her fall, and she passes out. 

  
  


.

  
  


The room is dark save for the soft flicker of the television when she opens her eyes some time later. She’s expecting to find an empty space when she rolls over so is more than a little surprised when she finds Hélène sitting in the armchair next to the bed. 

“Good,” is all Hélène says, not taking her eyes off the muted black and white movie before Villanelle folds out of bed and walks straight to the bathroom. 

She brushes her teeth to rid her mouth of the lingering acrid taste of bile and with some difficulty gets the top off of the mouthwash, gargling twice and spitting into the sink before she makes her way back into the room where Hélène is now standing with her jacket folded neatly over her arm. 

“How long was I asleep for?” Villanelle asks her, walking to the bed and sitting down on the end, looking around but not seeing any sign of Hélène’s impromptu surgery left in the room. It takes her looking down and sighting the fresh bandage on her arm before she’s certain that the events running through her mind were real and not just another fevered dream. 

“Not very long,” Hélène replies. “An hour or so.” 

“You stayed,” Villanelle says, somewhere between a question and statement. 

“I did,” Hélène confirms with a nod. 

Villanelle frowns. “Why?” 

“You passed out,” Hélène tells her by way of an explanation. Her expression shifts slightly when it becomes clear that Villanelle is still confused about her lack of absence. “How does your arm feel?”

“Like someone restitched it without any anaesthetic,” Villanelle says dryly. 

The corner of Hélène’s mouth curves upwards in an elegant smile. She gestures to the nightstand where a bottle of water and two separate foil packets of pills wait. “Before you object, they’re only ibuprofen and a course of antibiotics for you to start. Nothing state-altering.”

She waits patiently until Villanelle swallows two pills from each blister packet, not saying anything further until Villanelle lets herself fall back onto the bed and closes her eyes again for a moment. “I should leave you to rest,” Hélène says, pushing herself up and out of her chair in the same breath. She makes it all the way to the door of her room before Villanelle calls out after her. 

“Wait,” Villanelle says aloud as Hélène’s hand curls around the door handle. 

She’s not completely sure why she doesn’t just let Hélène leave without another word, she doesn’t know what she wants to gain by trying to keep her here for another few minutes; all she knows is that she’s sick of people walking away from her. 

By some miracle, she’s managed to keep Eve largely out of her mind until then but the look of confusion on Hélène’s face reminds her so much of Eve that she has to reach out for the edge of the bed in order to steady herself. 

When her vision stills and she focuses on Hélène again, she realises that the other woman is looking at her expectantly. With another beat of her heart, she slips back into her skin, curls her hand around the fine Nordic wood, straightening her back with an illusion of more strength that she knows she has in her at present. “I don’t think we’re done yet, do you?”

Curiosity flickers in Hélène’s eyes but she doesn’t say anything, she just waits like she knows the move is Villanelle’s to make. 

Surveying the distance between them like a mid-game chessboard, Villanelle makes her assessment of the situation, tries to ignore the throbbing in her arm long enough to decide what it is that she’s trying to achieve. Hélène is attracted to her, that much she knows. She won’t hesitate to kill her though, that she knows too, so there’s no point in trying to buy allegiance with the warmth of her body or the skill of her tongue. No, that won’t buy her loyalty or safety beyond the next twelve hours, but it will buy her something to fill the thrumming well of loneliness that has been so much harder to ignore from the moment Eve’s lips left hers. Hélène is no real ally of hers, but that doesn’t mean they both can’t benefit from this proximity in another way. She curls her hand around the queen in her mind’s eye, rolls it on the curve of its base as her physical body shifts its weight, readying for her next move. “I mean, there are probably things we still need to discuss,” Villanelle adds when Hélène finally raises an eyebrow expectantly. 

“Like what?” Hélène asks her. 

Villanelle shrugs. “I don’t know anything about you for a start, we could begin there. You say that you want us to tell the truth to one another. Don’t you think you should tell me why I should? And why me? Why were you the one who met me that first time? Did you ask to be assigned to me? Or did they think I would be more likely to behave myself if they sent a beautiful woman and not a fat useless old man?” 

“Do you always ask so many questions?” Hélène asks in reply. Her tone is hard but there’s a mildly amused grin on her lips that Villanelle has to suppress the urge to reach for. 

“I never used to ask any questions,” Villanelle tells her in response. “Only, how much am I going to get paid.” She stands up and takes a few steps towards Hélène. “But things have changed now.”

Hélène doesn’t bother to ask what she thinks has changed, they both know that is not relevant or important, only the outcome is, only the consequences of that shift matter.

“You don’t think that asking questions is dangerous?” Hélène asks, leaning back against the door and crossing her arms over her chest. The movement makes the heavy gold bracelets around her wrists twinkle with light and sound, both drawing Villanelle’s eye. 

Are they the chains of a bondsman, Villanelle wonders, or restraints? 

“Maybe,” Villanelle answers after she takes another step closer. “But I think that not asking them is more dangerous now. There is power in the air for the taking, those that do not fight for it will be hunted in the aftermath.” 

“Where do you think my place is among that?” Hélène asks her curiously. 

“I don’t know,” Villanelle replies. “If I knew that, I think I would know if the question was dangerous or not.”

Hélène considers her and her questions long enough for Villanelle to notice the dry roughness of her throat and turn back to the bed in search of the half-full glass of water. She doesn’t miss the way Hélène’s eye seems to have followed the movement of her throat. 

Finally, Hélène shrugs, the movement seeming to say, as you wish. “What do you wish to know about me?” she asks Villanelle. 

“Where did they find you?” Villanelle questions first. She feels the hair on the back of her neck prickle and lift when Hélène takes a few silent steps towards her, taking up her seat again in the chair next to Villanelle’s bed. 

She settles in before she speaks, crossing her legs and resting her folded arms in her lap. “I told you before that I was a doctor once upon a time,” Hélène says. “A surgeon, in actual fact, from a family with too much money and too many dependencies on different networks of power. The Twelve found me at the height of my career, convinced me to step into a role with a broader reach and more ambiguity. Powerful families are useful to them, you can buy influence of course, but it’s much easier to use what is already there. I was young and flattered and beyond the point of no return before I had any idea of it. I did what you do, in the beginning, it is much easier to be creative with a kill if you understand the intricacies of the human body as a surgeon does, but I was more use to them when I was visible, not hiding between jobs.”

“You have worked for them for a long time?” Villanelle asks critically, genuinely intrigued. 

“I have ensured that I remain useful,” Hélène replies evenly. “And my family has an influence if it’s own. No single family is powerful enough to bring down The Twelve, not with all the money in the world, but mine knows enough, is connected enough to others to ensure that they would do a good deal of damage if they ever decided that I was suddenly dispensable.”

“And your daughter?” Villanelle questions her next. 

“An accident, although a not altogether unpleasant one,” Hélène tells her. “To answer another question, I prefer the company of women but men have their uses occasionally. He was rich and well connected and continuity is important for families like mine. It was not a difficult decision to keep her, even though pregnancy was an unfortunate and inefficient waste of time.” Hélène pauses for a moment, gages the twitch of Villanelle’s lip, the suppressed but present anger. “I love my daughter, and she has a more fulfilled life than most children in the world could ever dream of, but _they_ will always come first.” She holds Villanelle’s eye. “Is that satisfactory?”

Villanelle ignores the question. She isn’t interested enough to explore any deeper, she doesn’t actually care about every decade of Hélène’s past, she only really wants to understand how much the woman is willing to tell her. The past is the past, unchangeable and stagnant, she isn’t interested in staying there, not when there are other things she wants to know more. “Why me?”

“I told you,” Hélène says evenly. “You’re exquisite. Why _not_ you?” 

“And they said yes because they thought you could control me?” Villanelle asks a little harshly, the acid on her tongue sharp. 

“Nobody can control you, Villanelle,” Hélène replies without preamble or hooded meaning. “Every person that has tried to do that is dead, are they not? I’m not here to control you, I’m here to give you the things you want, to make sure that we remain useful to you, so we remain useful to each other. They agreed that I would likely do a better job of this than some of the others like me.” 

The statement is genuine enough for Villanelle to believe that Hélène herself believes what it is that she’s saying but there’s something else present in what she isn’t saying. She can’t be controlled, but can she be manipulated? There is a confidence in Hélène’s posture, a sureness, a lack of fear. Perhaps she can’t control Villanelle but she can disable her if need be. 

“You think you can give me what I want?” Villanelle asks her. “You think you can be useful to me?” 

“I think we can be useful to each other,” Hélène says with a political sureness. _I_ _think we can give each other what we both want,_ is said silently but no less clearly for the lack of volume. 

“I don’t need anyone else,” Villanelle replies as fiercely as she can manage with the warmth of Hélène’s body moving closer and closer. 

“I didn’t say that you did,” Hélène says clearly. “Being useful is not the same as being needed.” 

“And what exactly is it?” Villanelle asks, taking a step forward. “That you think would be useful to me?” 

Instead of answering, Hélène takes another step forward, and then another, until Villanelle can feel the heat of the woman against the still-bare skin of her shoulders through the thin layer of Hélène’s silk shirt. When she’s close enough, Hélène allows the warmth of her breath to rush over the column of Villanelle’s neck, hovering close but not quite close enough to make contact. “What do you think?” Hélène says, barely above a whisper. 

“You want me,” Villanelle answers, turning her head to look at Hélène as much as their proximity to one another will allow. What she can’t see in the woman’s face is evident in the quick pulsing of the vein in her neck and the slight flush in her cheeks. 

Taking a step back, Hélène tucks the errant piece of hair that had fallen down around her face back behind her ear. “Would it bother you if I said that I did?” she asks. “Or would it flatter you?”

The desire is genuine, Villanelle thinks as she surveys the shiver that runs through Hélène after a carefully measured inhale. It’s difficult to tell what else is, or what Hélène really wants, but that much is clear and after months of yearning, of hating the world for not allowing a single person to want her enough to take a risk, that is enough. 

“What do you think?” Villanelle asks her at the same time as she makes the decision, uncrosses her arms and allows her body to demonstrate the fact. 

Hélène makes a low sound of pleasure like a hum under her breath but she holds herself back even when she tips forward, balancing on the point of her toes before rocking backwards. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me,” she says to Villanelle. She pauses for a moment but continues at the look of confusion on Villanelle’s face. “I want to make sure that you know you have a choice here,” Hélène says. 

“You’re very sexy when you’re serious. Did you know that?” Villanelle laughs, reaching for Hélène’s hand and frowning when she finds her wrist caught between strong fingers. 

“This is not a joke,” Hélène says, ignoring the smug grin on Villanelle’s face. “I want you, Villanelle, but I’m not in the habit of forcing people into my bed with words or an imbalance of power. There’s no shortage of those that want me, if you do not. I promise you it won’t have any influence on our relationship going forward if you ask me to leave now., so make the choice consciously.” 

“It will change things whether we want it to or not,” Villanelle says, glaring at the gentle vice around her wrist until Hélène releases it without shifting the expression on her face. “But,” Villanelle continues, “so will every decision we make, including this,” she gestures to her bandaged arm. “It seems a shame to waste the consequences of those things by not doing what we want.”

She waits for a few seconds to try and gauge whether her next action will be rebuffed or accepted but Hélène doesn’t flinch or move a single muscle when Villanelle takes a step closer, so she takes another, and another, until she can feel the heat peeling off the other woman in waves, can feel the brush of her breasts with every deep inhale. Hélène doesn’t move at all until Villanelle lifts her uninjured hand and takes a piece of glossy hair between her fingers. Only then does she tilt her chin to the side, showing Villanelle the expanse of her throat. _It’s so different to Anna’s_ , she thinks as she slides her palm around the curve of Hélène’s scalp and ignores the ghosts in the corners of the room. _So different to Eve’s_. 

“You are used to being in charge, aren’t you?” Hélène asks as her eyes flutter closed and she softens a little. 

“Yes,” Villanelle says plainly, feels her body ripple with the confidence of it. 

“Do you want to be in charge now?” Hélène asks her. 

“Yes.” The answer is automatic, even if the desire swirling in her belly says something slightly different with every second spent in the orbit of Hélène’s tangible power.

“Are you certain?” Hélène asks gently, her voice like silk as she reaches for the line of Villanelle’s jaw, rests her thumb under her chin. 

“Yes,” Villanelle replies adamantly, but her body is already bending, curving into submission, even before Hélène’s hands move to her waist and curl, pulling her closer. 

“Are you really certain?” Hélène asks again, nudging Villanelle’s cheek with hers, turning her head to the side. 

She allows her breath to rush over Villanelle’s neck, warming her pulse as one hand stays fixed at her hip and the other travels down her throat and across the line of her shoulder. It stops high on Villanelle’s bicep when she flinches ever so slightly, the action an automatic reflex of protection. 

“Don’t worry,” Hélène says, gesturing to Villanelle’s arm as she considers pulling away to protect it. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She continues at Villanelle’s slightly cynical frown. “I meant what I said earlier. I am stronger than you, older, yes but more experienced for it. I don’t need to take advantage of an injury to overpower you.”

“You sound very sure,” Villanelle snorts, raising an eyebrow. 

“I am,” Hélène says calmly. Her eyes move carefully over the flicker of danger in Villanelle’s, catching the contemplation of violence. “I’d rather not demonstrate,” she adds, sliding her hand up and burying it in the hair at the nape of Villanelle’s neck. “But if you insist-“

The sound is cut off abruptly by Villanelle’s mouth closing over hers. The kiss is chaste at first, hard almost to the point of bruising but shallow until Hélène groans and parts her lips. She hadn’t meant to make the first move, had wanted Hélène to be the one to close the final gap between them, to prove her commitment to whatever this thing is or will be between them but curiosity had won out over patience, and as Hélène pulls her closer, she can’t find it in herself to regret the action at all. 

“I’m not going to change my mind,” Villanelle growls when Hélène pulls back to gather her breath, taking the pause as hesitation. 

Hélène laughs, more to herself than at the situation. “That’s not it. I want to look at you,” she tells Villanelle, running her tongue over her lip as she allows her palms to move over the bare skin of Villanelle’s shoulders and down her sides, pausing at her ribs, thumbs brushing the underwire off her bra. “You truly are magnificent,” she tells Villanelle before she leans in to kiss her again, hesitation abandoned totally in favour of hunger, her tongue hot and desperate against Villanelle’s as she starts to walk them back towards the bed. 

Reluctant to submit completely, Villanelle pulls herself closer to Hélène using the other woman’s grip on her, unbalancing her for half a step before Hélène steadies them both. She is strong, Villanelle allows herself to admit as she surges forward for another kiss, pressing her lips to Hélène’s softly for a beat before she deepens the kiss, nipping Hélène’s lip sharply and then pulling away with a smug grin on her face. She watches Hélène run her tongue over the point where she had almost broken the skin, takes in the pink stain on her cheeks, the deep darkness of her pupils. 

There’s an odd lack of competition that Villanelle had thought might be present between the two of them, an absence of rivalry that exists, for her at least, inside this room. She had imagined more of a power struggle but there’s something about Hélène that is smooth and velvety and she finds it’s so much easier than she had expected to fit neatly against the other woman’s body. It’s not submission, not exactly, more a tacit acknowledgement of the power each of them have relative to one another. Hélène might truly be stronger but Villanelle wouldn’t go down without a fight; it would be messy and brutal and would leave whoever did survive changed, marred, and not for the better. If a fight to the death becomes necessary, they will both step in tooth and claw and tear each other apart but they both know now that avoiding such a clash would be beneficial, for them both. 

“Have you thought about this?” Villanelle asks her with a genuine curiosity when she finally takes her gaze from Hélène’s lips. 

“Yes,” Hélène answers without delay. 

The heat in her belly swirls and Villanelle clenches her jaw in an attempt to control the throb that threatens to travel lower. “Tell me,” Villanelle demands. 

“I couldn’t quite decide what you would want and how. Whether you would want me to be gentle or not,” Hélène says in answer, banking the fire in her belly and causing a hotter surge. 

“And now?” Villanelle asks. 

Hélène appraises her, allowing her eyes to move slowly over Villanelle as one might look over a piece of art. “I think when you are in charge you like to be rough, but I’m not so sure if the same is true when someone else is.”

Pushing aside her anger at how accurate that assessment truly is, Villanelle moves, kissing Hélène again with enough force to unbalance them both again. She closes her eyes and expects to find herself on top of Hélène as they fall to the bed but Hélène is quicker and she pivots on the ball of her foot and reverses their position in one smooth motion so it’s her that rises over Villanelle’s hips and not the other way around. 

She’s surprised but not in any way that makes her want to fight back, not when Hélène uses her position to shrug her shirt off and lower herself against Villanelle, her skin soft and warm where it meets her own. Her hands find the bare expanse of Villanelle’s stomach, pushing under her singlet at the same time that Villanelle’s find her hip and breast, palming the flesh hungrily, drawing a moan from somewhere deep in Hélène’s throat. The rumble moves through both of them changing to something more breathless when Villanelle feels the fabric of her top pushed up her stomach. 

“Perhaps a little of both,” Hélène says, after sinking her teeth into the swell of Villanelle’s breast and watching the way she rises in search of more. 

“Are you surprised?” Villanelle asks her once she’s rid them both of all their clothing, leaving nothing between them as they press together finally skin to skin. 

“Not really,” Hélène answers as her hand moves down Villanelle’s stomach, disappearing between her thighs with an unmuted gasp that’s difficult to tie to just one of them. “Everyone needs intimacy, don’t they,” Hélène continues as her fingers slide lower and tease for a second before they fill her, sending Villanelle arching up and off the bed. 

Hélène leans low over her, pressing her lips to the curve of Villanelle’s neck as she moves her fingers in and out so deeply that Villanelle can feel the sensation of it ripple along her spine. She can feel Hélène’s satisfied grin against her throat but she’s too far gone to think seriously about lashing out, no, she’d far rather lose herself in the infuriatingly talented rhythm of Hélène’s thrusts, the sensation of her lips wrapping around her nipple, tongue swirling gently as her hand moves with a strength that makes her toes curl. 

She comes that way, with Hélène inside her, clutching desperately at whatever she can as Hélène whispers against her skin. “Why else would we keep doing such terrible things to each other without something valuable enough to kill for.”

  
  


.


	4. four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was wrong before, earlier, with her head in Eve's hands at the long end of a fever dream, that wasn’t absolution. No, she thinks, breathing deeply and leaning into the fierce heat of Eve’s body. I think we all have a monster inside of us. We are the same. No, she thinks. That wasn’t it. This, this is absolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at the end, folks! Thank you so much for reading, I will make my way through replying to all the comments, I promise. They all bring me such genuine joy and I appreciate them all so much. 
> 
> Stay safe out there, wherever your there is x

.

  
  


viii.

(part one)

**A plan in the flaw.**

_Eve_

She doesn’t remember taking the first step back towards Villanelle but before she can question the passage of time, Villanelle is there, within an arm's reach, her eyes glistening like the city lights off of the water beneath them. 

Eve takes the final step bringing them closer, but it’s Villanelle who speaks first. “Are you sure?” she asks Eve as she blinks, disturbing a tear that then rolls down her face. She doesn’t seem to notice, doesn’t reach for it, no, she seems to have eyes for one thing and one thing only. 

“Yes,” Eve says as Villanelle’s gaze remains fixed, transfixed, on her. 

“ _Really_ sure?” Villanelle presses, her voice flashing with something that Eve might have mistaken for a threat before, but now she knows it for what it actually is, a desperate search for truth. The timbre of each word is low, strung through with something that makes the warmth stir at the base of Eve’s spine. 

“Yes,” Eve repeats, nodding. She’s surprised by the calm in her own voice. It seems so clear now, what she wants, no, _needs_ , that she can’t understand why she spent so long fighting against this to begin with. 

“Be certain, Eve,” Villanelle says to her, swallowing heavily, the moonlight glinting off of the tear track on her cheek. “Because I don’t think I can walk away like that again.”

Eve remembers once asking Villanelle whether she felt things, she remembers the headspin that her response had put her in all the rest of that day. It’s one thing to try and reconcile whatever her feelings were or are when the person central to them has hands so red she doesn’t know whether they’ll ever wash clean, but to add sociopathy to that was something else entirely. Standing here though, in front of a Villanelle that is both the same and _so_ different, unprotected and desperate, her whole body trembling with energy that can’t be anything but pure emotion so strong Eve doesn’t even think she would be capable of faking, finally puts that distant worry to bed. 

She knows that Villanelle will never be a model citizen, she’ll never give up her darkness, she’ll never try to exorcise it out, she’ll never be _good_ like the storybooks bark on about, she might never give up her gift of taking life (Eve isn’t even sure that she wants her too), but here, in front of Eve, bare and without barrier, Eve knows that she can feel, and that, _that_ , is enough.

Looking at her, at the almost ethereal stillness of her body in juxtaposition to the energy coming off her in waves, Eve can see the truth of that statement burnt into Villanelle’s eyes. Exhaustion. Pain. The fatigue of pushing against what you know, against base nature, coming too close to denying fate has taken its toll. This, Eve can see, has cost her dearly. 

“You won’t have to walk away again,” Eve says as calmly as she can manage. “I don’t want you to walk away again.” She can see the energy shift to something hopeful and nervous. “Why did you tell me to walk away?” 

Villanelle shrugs, digging her hands into her pockets. “I wanted to see if you would.”

“A test?” Eve asks, frowning. 

“I suppose,” Villanelle answers her. “Isn’t everything?”

“Why? For who?” Eve asks, even though she thinks she already knows the reason. She’s walked away from Villanelle before twice, both times with almost fatal consequences and both times on her terms. This time, she thinks, Villanelle had wanted control, or as much as she could possibly have anyway. 

“For us,” Villanelle says simply. When Eve doesn’t speak, only lets the wind on the bridge pass through the gap between them, highlighting the distance Eve aches to close, Villanelle continues. “Nobody ever chooses me, Eve. Not in the end. They run instead. It’s fun for a while and then it’s not. You’re the only ever one who came back, the only one that I didn’t have to chase, but even then…”

There it is again, Eve thinks as anger flashes in Villanelle’s eyes, simmering until it boils down to hurt where it stays, isn’t replaced by trained neutrality. She wants to speak but her tongue catches in her throat and before she can choke out another word, Villanelle continues. 

“I’m sick of not being chosen,” she says, voice wavering only slightly. “I wanted to see if something was different, from Rome, because it felt different to me. I wanted to see if things had really changed or if there really was something wrong with me and I couldn’t tell anything anymore.” Exhaling deeply, she looks at Eve, takes a step forward, close enough now that their hands almost brush. “So,” she says slowly. “I’ll ask you one more time, Eve. Are you really sure about this? Choosing me. Do you understand what it means?”

“Do you?” Eve asks her in return. 

“Do you really think I would have let Konstantin leave if I didn’t,” Villanelle challenges, her tone forthright, her back straight. 

The struck flint sparks and catches the tinder spread all around them and Eve feels the importance of this moment grow and swell. “What would you do if I wasn’t?” she asks cautiously. Villanelle is open, willing, but all the more dangerous for it. Eve knows that first hand, intimately, terribly. “Ready that is,” Eve clarifies. “Kill me?”

Eve’s not sure whether to take heart when Villanelle turns back to the bridge barrier, leaning over it and genuinely considering her question, or concern. She’s relieved to find the worry soothed when she does answer. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Villanelle replies, turning her head to look at Eve, smiling when she takes note of how close Eve has come to rest at her side, close enough for their elbows to touch and their hips to brush against each other with any slight movement. “Not anymore,” she says, continuing. “We’ve already killed each other before and that was a lot of energy for something that didn’t even take.”

Eve laughs, the action bringing them even closer together and reviving Villanelle’s smile. “God, it is exhausting, isn’t it?” Eve says to distract herself from the realisation that Villanelle hasn’t put any space back between them. 

The look on Villanelle’s face shifts, the relief slipping ever so slightly. “I would go, though.” She turns to Eve. “Away, I mean. If you weren’t ready. I promise you wouldn’t ever see me again, not if you looked for your whole life.” Her eyes glow, pained and lovely and so, _so_ lonely. “It isn’t nice, not being chosen, you know,” Villanelle says quietly. “I’ve had enough of it.”

Without thinking, without hesitating, Eve reaches for Villanelle’s hand where it rests curled around her own forearm. Her hand whips around to Eve’s so quickly it almost makes her pull away in surprise, but her instinct is to hold, to tighten her grip instead. Neither speak for a moment, all of the background noise on the bridge disappears; sirens fade, the rattle of cars and buses and the occasional cyclist all dissipate into nothing, the only thing that matters, the only thing that exists, is the exact spot they find themselves tethered together. 

It bothers Eve when she realises that earlier, dancing, and sitting close enough on the couch to one another that Eve could feel the heat and excitement pouring off her, that there have only been a handful, and she truly means handful, of times when contact between them hasn’t been volatile, or outright violent. She wonders if this is what it feels like to touch a tame wolf, one with teeth as sharp as they always were but placated for a time, well-fed with self-control in check. The sheer strength of life that she can feel beating under the skin of Villanelle’s wrist, cooled power and desire, _god, she’s so alive, Eve thinks_ , makes her want to fall to her knees and pray or something, _anything_ to acknowledge how ludicrously powerful this moment is. 

Villanelle, for all of Eve’s inner turmoil, barely moves. When she does, her eyes are still bright with something like disbelief and they stay that way, wary like a predator unsure of the strength of its prey, or its mate, but that softens when her other hand closes over Eve’s and Eve doesn’t snatch the other one, now surrounded completely by the captive heat of Villanelle, away. 

Slowly, Eve turns her hand around until she can take Villanelle’s in her own completely. The urge to close some of the emotional distance overwhelms her, only she’s not sure what the right words are. _Action_ , she thinks as Villanelle offers her palm in silent compliance, eyes locked on Eve, _action will suffice until then_. They both blink in surprise when their fingers splay and then settle together in a perfect fit. 

Villanelle exhales into the air between them, flexing and readjusting her grip. Eve marvels at the fluidity of the movement, the gentleness in her touch, the slight roughness caused by small callouses, the soft, slow, simmering heat that she can almost imagine the sensation of against her cheek, wrapped around her thighs. 

As though able to read Eve’s mind, Villanelle turns to her, smirking before something more serious replaces it. She doesn’t remove her hand from Eve’s before she speaks, “I don’t want to kill people anymore, Eve,” she says firmly. “It doesn’t bother me that I did it, but I don’t think I want to do it anymore. I was good at it, very good, and would be if I wanted to do it again but I am done being a thing they toss around. Sick of being an asset when that just means something in a cage on a leash to them.” Finally, she turns to Eve. “I don’t regret it. Any of it. They all deserved it in some way or another, but it makes me angry for what I could have had if I hadn’t gotten so… distracted.”

Something twinges in Eve's chest, just over her heart. “Do you think we would have met if you weren’t distracted?” she asks. 

“I don’t know,” Villanelle replies. “But I think so. Sometimes things happen no matter what you try and do to stop them, I think. This has always felt a little like that.” She fixes Eve with a hard, almost warning look. “It’s going to be dangerous,” she says. “For both of us. Whatever we do from here.” 

Eve takes a deep breath in, grounds herself in the strength still held in their intertwined fingers, and then exhales slowly. “I know,” she says. “And I’m not going to say I’m not scared, because I am, but…. but everything feels more dangerous when we’re apart. I don’t think either of us is safe anymore. We might as well be not safe, but together.” 

“Together,” Villanelle hums, rolling the word with intention over her tongue. 

“Who do you think it will be?” Eve asks her. Not that it really matters. It becomes irrelevant, Eve thinks, which hand the pen is in when the ink still drying spells out a death warrant. 

“Think about tonight, Eve,” Villanelle turns to her with a harshly cynical grin. “Who did you believe, in that room? Carolyn, Konstantin, the dead man? Any of them?” When Eve doesn’t answer, she snorts as if to say, I told you so. “They’re all the same. It doesn’t matter which uniform they’re wearing when they do,” Villanelle tells her with a clean finality that Eve knows to be true. 

Eve laughs, lets the anxiety and frustration and pain out in the bark that comes from the very bottom of her lungs. “What the hell happens now?” 

“What do you want to happen?” Villanelle asks her, looking for all the world like someone who finally doesn’t have a single expectation of her. 

“We have to stop hurting each other,” Eve says firmly, then relaxes when she sees the way Villanelle is watching her. “I want us to stop hurting each other,” she clarifies, smiles when Villanelle’s thumb runs over hers gently. 

She isn’t sure she’ll ever get used to the utter contradictions this woman is capable of. Then again, violence and softness she supposes, have always been different sides of the same coin. 

“I didn’t turn around because I wanted to keep hurting you,” Villanelle admits. “And I didn’t turn so that you could try hurting me again either.” 

Eve frowns, partly relieved but still searching for an answer too. “Why did you turn?”

“You know why,” Villanelle says plainly. 

“I think I need you to say it,” Eve admits, the volume of it barely above a whisper. 

Villanelle waits before responding, her posture still again, challenging her, asking her _are you sure you’re ready for this, Eve, are you truly, truly sure_ before finally she says, “because, I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

_Don’t say love_ . Carolyn’s words. _You don’t love me, not even close_. Only, Eve knows that Villanelle does, in her own way. She’s not ready to hear it yet, Rome feels like it was so long ago it existed in another life and yet if she closes her eyes she can still hear the defeat in Villanelle’s voice and the punch of the bullet finding its way through flesh and bone. 

“Why did you turn?” Villanelle asks Eve. 

“They’ll come anyway, whether we’re together or not,” Eve answers pragmatically. Leaving out the emotive rationale isn’t a lie, Eve tells herself; omission isn’t mistruth. 

When Villanelle speaks again, she sounds just a little flatter than before and Eve regrets the plainness of her response. “Yes,” she sounds almost resigned. “They will.”

Villanelle doesn’t ask her again, doesn’t actually say anything or turn puppy dog eyes her way but for some reason, Eve figures she owes her - needs to give her - a better explanation. 

“And because I wanted to.” Eve sighs deeply, holding the metal barrier hard with her free hand tighter when she feels Villanelle’s breath hitch. _God_ , she thinks. _Why did we ever bother to try and stay apart?_ Eve turns her head. “What happens now?”

“I have no idea,” Villanelle shrugs, then turns to Eve. “What do you want to do?”

Fatigue hits Eve like a blow and she wonders when the last time she truly stopped and rested was. “Honestly?” she laughs dryly. “I want to sleep.” 

The eyes watching hers brighten, not in excitement but in resolve. “I have somewhere we can go. Somewhere that I don’t think they know about,” Villanelle offers completely without expectation or innuendo, and in that moment Eve understands exactly why Anna fell in love with Oksana who then had nothing more than her charm and her anger and a desperate need to belong.

“You’re not going to make a joke about taking me home?” Eve says before she can stop herself, because fatigue and relief have stripped away her hesitation. 

Villanelle turns to her, her carefully neutral face opening with a smug grin. “Do you want me to make a joke about taking you home? I was trying to be respectful, Eve, but if you would rather I wasn’t-“ 

“Forget it,” Eve groans, taking her hand off the railing and moving to disengage it from Villanelle’s but the other woman moves smoothly before their fingers can slip apart. 

“Come on,” Villanelle says, smirking as she tugs Eve towards her, turning her chin in a specific direction, rethreading their hands neatly. “You’re right,” she continues as they start walking hand in hand and in step with each other despite the height difference. “It is important that people your age get their beauty sleep. I do not want to deprive you of that.”

“People my age?” Eve objects, pulling her hand free of Villanelle’s grip and shoving her lightly with the heel of her palm. 

“It is okay, Eve,” Villanelle says without looking back, apparently trusting that Eve will follow. “I don’t think you really need beauty sleep,” she says when she feels Eve fall into step behind her, demonstrating the complete lack of innocence in the comment. “But,” she says, sighing and turning her chin to face their direction of travel. “It is probably a good idea for us to go anyway.” 

“When do you think they’ll start looking for us?” Eve asks her, not breaking step or making reference to the way her hand seeks Villanelle’s out again when they step off the bridge. 

“Start?” Villanelle turns to her with the expression that Eve has come to know as serious, but lacking in anger. It would be concern in anyone else, but Villanelle doesn’t fear what is chasing them, even if she should. 

“Yes,” Eve nods. “When will they start looking?”

She feels eyes track across her face, looking for joke or jest only continuing when she finds none. “Eve,” Villanelle says calmly, squeezing her hand to prompt her to keep moving, only then making her realise she’d stopped still. “They never stop.”

  
  


.

  
  


Villanelle’s safe house, Eve learns, is a neat little townhouse in a leafy suburb that is almost eerily similar to the neighbourhood she and Niko lived and fell out of love in, but the property itself when Villanelle enters an eight-digit code into a small and discrete pin pad where a lock would ordinarily be could not be more different. 

It’s minimal and feels largely unlived in but somehow still feels enough like Villanelle to put Eve’s mind at ease. She doesn’t recognise any of the furniture or decor from Paris but she supposes that was all likely destroyed when the cleanup crew arrived and removed Villanelle from the building’s existence. The furniture is sparse but expensive-looking and eclectic and Eve walks looks longingly at one of the plush armchairs before Villanelle gestures towards it. “Please,” she says as she moves around, flicking a few lights on. “Make yourself at home.”

Eve doesn’t wait to be told twice, instead takes a few steps towards the piece of furniture, falling into it with a grateful sigh. She closes her eyes for a moment, opening them when she hears Villanelle moving around in the kitchen, opening and closing a couple of drawers. Eve does take the time to look around then; it’s not an enormous space, not like the large rooms of her home in France, but it’s certainly not small and nothing like the half-way house she herself has spent the last six months existing in. The kitchen is separated from the lounge and dining area by a long marble island that Villanelle is currently standing behind, watching her with unhooded eyes. Behind her, off to one side Eve can see a doorway and a set of stairs that travel up to a second floor. 

“There’s only one room upstairs,” Villanelle tells her, following Eve’s line of sight and apparent thought process. “But I can sleep down here. The couch is very comfortable.”

Eve shakes her head. “No, I don’t-“. 

“It will only be for a night or two, Eve. I will be fine,” Villanelle interrupts her. 

Eve blushes, almost talks herself out of finishing her sentence before the surprisingly earnest look on Villanelle’s face changes her mind. “No,” she says quietly. “I was going to say that I don’t mind sharing… unless you do.” 

“Oh.” Villanelle makes an odd sound of genuine surprise. “No,” she smiles, charming but not harshly so. “I don’t mind at all.”

The admission shifts something in the air between them and Eve becomes acutely aware of the change. It feels like the moments after the kiss on the bus and the seconds on the bridge when they had linked hands; all anger and deceit retreating and leaving a strange kind of intimacy behind, one that finally, _finally_ , contains no one else save the two of them. 

“When did you… when did this happen?” Eve asks, gesturing to the house. “And how?” 

“After Rome,” is all that Villanelle says to her in the first question. “And I bought it, Eve. They pay me a lot of money, you know. All of it in cash. It can be difficult to do things without them knowing but Konstantin has people that make it happen, you just have to have enough money to pay for their discretion.”

“Have you spent any time here?” Eve asks her. 

“No.” Villanelle shakes her head. “When I am in London for them I stay in their hotels. There are a few places like this that I can come to, if I need. I do not own them all, Konstantin owns most, but this one is just mine.” 

“And you trust him?” Eve asks. She hopes for the sake of the civility of their conversation that the cynicism isn’t too obvious in her voice.

“Trust?” Villanelle says, tilting her head from side to side in thought. “No. No, I don't trust him. Do I know enough of his secrets to be a problem if he became a problem to me though?” She flashes her teeth in a victorious smile, and Eve thinks of a lion, of the serpent in the garden, of the very essence of danger poured into living breathing form. “Of course I do.”

The sense of imminent threat retreats in the face of Villanelle’s obvious strength just enough to lower the hair that had stood to attention at the back of Eve’s neck and she closes her eyes, allowing the exhaustion holding her whole body up to just _crash_ and run back like the tide. 

When she opens her eyes again, the kitchen is dark and quiet and empty of the woman who had occupied it before. For a second Eve panics, bolts upright in her chair before she registers the soft light on the stairs and the obvious but calm sounds of life above her. Rubbing her eyes, Eve stands and looks for something to give her an indication of time to tell her how long she’s been asleep for. Finding nothing save the display on the oven flashing an obviously incorrect _00:00_ , she makes her way to the stairs, and setting her hand on the railing, starts to climb. 

The upper floor is smaller than the lower one but the whole space is occupied by the more or less singular purpose of housing the generous master suite and bathroom. Eve finds Villanelle sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring at a laptop open in front of her, the screen illuminating her face the only source of light in the room save a rich white from the bathroom and a dimmed gentle glow coming from an area behind the bed that Eve assumes must be a wardrobe of some kind. 

“How long have I been asleep for?” Eve asks Villanelle, only then noticing her damp hair and the satin-looking shirt and pants that must be the most expensive set of pyjamas Eve has ever seen. 

Villanelle glances up at her, looking much softer than she has any right being. “An hour or so,” she answers, smiling at Eve with something almost like contentment. 

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Eve asks, trying to temper both her embarrassment and frustration, feeling suddenly lost and out of place, realisation finding her as she looks around at Villanelle’s obvious wealth that she has nothing. Nothing they can use, anyway. Nothing that isn’t traceable. 

“You looked peaceful,” Villanelle tells her, tilting her head as she tries to read Eve’s mood. “And tired. We have time to rest for a bit, Eve.” Seeing Eve’s frown of concern, she continues. “Whatever they do, I don’t think they will act right away. They will want to see what our plan is, first. They lay traps, yes, but they’re not in the business of premeditation. There’s not a lot of point, you see. Not when most people end up tying their own noose.” She rolls her eyes at the look of fear that finds Eve, huffing in slight annoyance. “I am not most people, Eve. And neither are you. Stop worrying.”

“What is our plan?” Eve crosses her arms over her chest, the fabric of her jacket rustling. She notices the lack of other noise then; no street noise makes its way through the windows that wind their way around the upper floor, not that Eve can see traffic through the drawn curtains but still, it’s surprising not to hear anything. 

It makes the still, domestic form of Villanelle stand out to her even more. In another world, Eve thinks, they could be normal, _this_ could be normal. Villanelle could be a ruthless professional, and Eve could be anything but who she is; traitor, murderer, lost. This could be their normal evening routine, this could be their home and not a place for them to collect their thoughts and start running for god knows how long. Villanelle could pat the space next to her and smile indulgently at Eve’s mood before reaching for the collar of her jacket, pulling her close, pressing their lips together and not letting go until Eve can’t remember her own name let alone why she was angry or upset or stressed in the first place. Where the soundless street was only the product of expensive glass for practicality and not the hush of bulletproof necessity. 

“Eve.” Eventually, Villanelle’s voice breaks through the melancholy, but Eve has to blink a few times before she realises that Villanelle patting the empty side of the bed is not an illusion but reality. “Come here,” Villanelle gestures. “I want to show you something.” 

Slowly, Eve makes her way to Villanelle, only rather than sitting on the edge of the bed, she just stands and sways a little until her eyes focus on what the screen presents to her. She notices then the notebook open beside Villanelle with figures and letters, some crossed out and some circled, and the pencil still held in one hand. 

Villanelle turns the laptop towards Eve who finally bends down and begins to look through the various tabs open. They show flights on websites in several different languages, a number of secure bank accounts, some screens with black background and plain white text that looks like code and even a website with Stock Market figures on it. 

“I don’t have a plan beyond you, Eve,” Villanelle says plainly, but not devoid of feeling. “Other than not dying of course,” she adds, then turns to look at Eve properly. “But that does not mean that I am not prepared.”

“What is this?” Eve questions a little breathlessly. 

“Next steps,” Villanelle tells her easily. “Lots of different options, but best considered I think after some rest.” She surprises Eve then, reaching for Eve’s hand dangling uselessly by her side. “I promise you, if we needed to be moving right now, we would be moving. I don’t want to die, Eve. Believe me or not, I am trying to keep us safe.” 

“I know,” Eve flushes, embarrassed because somehow she _does_ know. “I feel completely useless,” she admits after Villanelle gives her the space to continue. “You have all of this, and I have nothing. Nothing to contribute or help with. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, I just-“

“You turned,” Villanelle says simply. “I don’t need you to do anything else.” At Eve’s still-blank expression she unfolds her legs and pushes off the bed, coming to stand beside Eve. “I know what I am doing now. There will be times when we will need what you can do.”

“I can’t do anything though, that’s the whole point,” Eve half-shouts in exasperation. “All I can do is get us into trouble with no ability to get us out. All I can do is-“

“You found me,” Villanelle tells her with a firm look. “Nobody else managed to do that much, Eve. Don’t underestimate yourself. If this is going to work, you’re going to have to start trusting yourself. I do, so you should too.” 

“I literally have nothing though,” Eve sighs. “I don’t have any money. I don’t even have any other clothes.”

The nonchalant calm draped over Villanelle’s shoulders is both infuriating and reassuring. “I have both,” Villanelle shrugs with the ease of someone who is truly not worried. “It’s not like you’re stealing from a charity by accessing mine, Eve. Remember where this money came from.” 

Eve barks a laugh that sounds like, _god you’re supposed to making me feel better, not worse._ She must look somewhat unsettled because Villanelle steps closer, extends that antidote to unease outwards until she feels it lap at the edges of her body. For one reason or another, Villanelle truly doesn’t seem overly concerned about their situation, and Eve allows that confidence to run fully over her fears like cold water over a burn. She has seen Villanelle act with urgency before, has felt the insistence of it during their flight through the cobbled streets of Rome, the strength of it as Villanelle’s unshaking but aware hands had slipped button after button of her stolen uniform free. She knows that Villanelle, the one that understands when time is of the essence, the one capable of tasting danger on an inhale, is not the one standing in front of her now because she is not needed. 

“Look,” Villanelle says soothingly, taking another step closer, near enough now that her eyes seem lit from within. “If it makes it easier, tell yourself this was all an elaborate plan to separate you from your horrible wardrobe.”

It takes a second for her to process what Villanelle has just said, but when she does, Eve laughs. Not a dry, shallow laugh, but a proper, free, born from somewhere near her soul laugh. “Go to hell,” she replies, allowing a begrudging smile to slip over her lips. “It’s not that bad.” 

Villanelle raises an eyebrow and without moving a single part of her body save her head, looks her up and down. “Yes, Eve,” she deadpans. “It is.”

“Not everyone has the time or money to look like you do every day, you know,” Eve grumbles defensively. 

Villanelle’s arms cross over her chest and she smirks. “And just how do I look every day?”

“You’re impossible,” Eve grumbles. She turns and takes a few steps before realising that she really doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Settling for at least putting some distance between them, she sits on the opposite end of the bed to where Villanelle is currently standing. 

“Maybe, but what else?” Villanelle asks, dropping onto all fours on the mattress and crawling over to Eve’s corner of the bed. “Please, Eve. I’m all ears.” 

She’s not sure whether it’s the look in Villanelle’s eyes that has her heart rate climbing faster and faster with every breath or the way she moves slowly towards her, silent and smooth. It’s definitely not the way her hair falls over her shoulders, small blonde curls at her temple drying quicker than the rest, or the way that if she were to drop her gaze any lower she’d see the tanned naked flesh of Villanelle’s chest and proof that what Eve can see appears to be all that the other woman has on. 

_Stop_ , she thinks before she can mentally berate herself any further. _You’re allowed to do this, remember._ Looking is obviously what Villanelle wants too, judging by the flush on her cheeks. _Besides_ , Eve thinks to herself cynically, _leaning into what you’re actually feeling for once is hardly the worst thing you’ve done tonight_. 

Villanelle keeps moving closer and closer and the base part of her brain is telling Eve to move, but the other part, the part that’s been acknowledged now and is looking hungrily for satisfaction is telling her to do something else entirely. When she comes to a stop, rearing up and sitting back on her knees, Villanelle moves to lean forward but she’s stopped by Eve’s hand on her chest, just above her heart. 

“I’m hardly going to give you the satisfaction of telling you anything half-interesting while you’re making fun of me, am I?” Eve says with as much confidence as she can muster, ignoring the way Villanelle looks ready to lunge forward or jump her or something equally dangerous when she glances down and sees the position of Eve’s hand and absorbs the reality of the moment. 

“I was right,” Villanelle says, suddenly pulling away from Eve's hand, smiling at the automatic noise of disappointment that Eve makes and fails to smother. She’s smiling broadly when she takes her place back by her computer. “This is much better.”

“Right about what? What do you mean?” Eve clears her throat, trying to both compose herself and manage the disappointment and embarrassment burning on her face. 

“Flirting with you,” Villanelle replies simply, much to Eve’s intense embarrassment and even greater relief. “It’s much more fun than trying to kill you.”

  
  


.

  
  


viii.

(part two)

**Debellatio.**

(Complete annihilation of a warring party, bringing about the end of the conflict)

_Villanelle_

  
  
  


Villanelle has seen many different sides of Eve over the last two years of their cat and mouse game. Reckless Eve, bold Eve, an Eve blind with fury. She has seen selfish Eve, terrified-beyond-breathing Eve, and even a version of her capable of committing murder. She had no idea standing under the horrid fluorescent lights of a hospital bathroom so long ago that the woman, now wandering around the room in front of her, could possibly be capable of so many different things. She knows now though, she knows many things that Eve is capable of being; erudite, righteous, manipulative, traitorous, naive, cunning, charming, cruel; and she knows in the same breath that there are so many things that she still doesn’t know. Once, she thought that there would be a limit to the parts of herself that Eve might be willing to show her but she knows now that those last vestiges of control and restraint and hesitation are gone. 

It takes biting the inside of her mouth hard, her teeth almost piercing flesh and drawing blood before she can properly convince herself that what she can see now isn’t another fever dream or illusion. She thinks that this version of Eve might be her favourite so far; hesitant, unsure but willing. A version of Eve no longer looking for an exit or a way to deceive, but for a place to settle into; a place to be. 

“It’s probably best to stop pacing, you know,” she tells Eve, who hasn’t ceased moving since Villanelle said the ‘f’ word a minute or so earlier. 

“Why?” Eve asks, stopping immediately with a fight-or-flight stillness. 

“The carpet is very expensive,” Villanelle replies, unable to stop the smile that she knows will present as smug even if it is really a kind of contentment. “I don’t want you to wear it down on our first night here.” 

“God, you really are an asshole,” Eve growls, scuffing her toe into the plush weave for good measure. 

“What’s the matter?” Villanelle asks her when she remembers that she can, that things have _changed_ now. She looks up at Eve, fixes her with a genuinely inquisitive frown. “Tell me what you’re thinking?” 

She’s pleased with the look of surprise that covers Eve’s face before she sets it aside in favour of thinking. Villanelle watches as she shifts from foot to foot, obviously considering how much to tell Villanelle before she answers. 

“I… honestly, I just don’t know what to do with myself,” Eve tells her, bracing herself and standing up a little straighter in preparation for whatever joke she’s obviously expecting to follow. 

“Uncertainty is overwhelming,” Villanelle says as she closes the laptop and shifts it into the alcove on the side of the bed where a small strip of light also illuminates a black cube with a digital display of the date and time. She doesn’t make a move to close the gap between them, she thinks that Eve needs space now; room to breathe and not a change that could make the room feel smaller. “Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want me to help you?”

Eve does a little better to hide her surprise this time, but not by a great margin. “Do you want me to talk about it?” she asks almost hesitantly. 

“We are in this together now, Eve,” Villanelle says in simple explanation. “That means we should help each other, if we can.” She continues when Eve doesn’t look to fill the silence. “Look, you don’t spend five years being psychoanalysed every other week without learning a few things, okay? Besides, there is a lot of time to read on a plane and information is power. I wanted to know what they meant by their questions.” 

“Sure,” Eve snorts. “Why not psychology as well. Linguistics was too easy, huh?” She continues when it becomes obvious that Villanelle’s not going to rise to the bait of that remark. “Go on then.” Eve holds out her hands, not bothering to check the sarcasm as she speaks. “Analyse me.” 

The tone of her voice makes Villanelle bristle and she has to take a second to remind herself that things are different now and it has been a long day and Eve is - unsurprisingly - obviously a person who gets grumpy in the face of stress and fatigue. “I am just trying to help,” Villanelle says with more neutrality than before, less softness. “If you do not want it, then-“

“No,” Eve interrupts quickly. “I do.” And then, “I’m sorry.” She sighs, closing her eyes and pushing the tips of her fingers into her hairline. “I’m… it’s been a long day and I think… I’d like to hear what you’re thinking. Please.” 

Before she answers Villanelle sighs, tries to offer Eve something akin to sympathy. “I know this is not how we expected things to go, but I do mean it, Eve. I’m done fighting. I just want things to be….”

“Normal?” Eve finishes for her. 

“Don’t make fun,” Villanelle begins but stops when she sees Eve shaking her head. 

“I’m not,” Eve assures her. “I promise, I’m not. Honestly, normal sounds pretty damn good right now. I didn’t mean to… it’s just different, this, I mean. _Us_. It’s nice, I guess I just wasn’t expecting-“

“I am not only the person you think I am, Eve,” Villanelle says, watching her reaction carefully. “We have seen sides of each other, but there are many you haven’t seen too.”

“No, I know you’re not,” Eve replies, looking abashed. She stares placidly at her shoes for a while before lifting her head again. “So… normal, huh? What the hell is normal?”

“Normal is having a shower and going to bed,” Villanelle says. “I’m serious,” she adds when Eve snorts. 

“I told you, I don’t have any clothes,” Eve sighs. She sounds tired, worn close to the bone with weariness. 

“I already told you, I do,” Villanelle tells her, getting to her feet and walking to the built-in wardrobe behind the bed. She finds the open shelves filled with the soft, comfortable clothing she had asked to be stocked, pushing through the neat piles until she finds a pair of plain black yoga pants and a loose white tee. She’s sure Eve will turn her nose up at the fitted pants but she’s not running a workshop sale, and besides, she knows they’ll suit her. Eve’s body is much nicer than her loose, cheap clothes would ever show, even if she isn’t prepared to admit it right away. 

“Here,” she says, handing the clothes over, smiling when their hands brush together. 

Eve eyes the items warily but exhaustion overrides the need to be pedantic, or a smart ass, so she just says a quiet, _thanks_ instead before making her way to the bathroom leaving Villanelle alone with the soft click of the door. Whether due to fatigue or trust or the fact that she doesn’t even register that the bathroom has one, Villanelle can’t help but notice that Eve doesn’t bother with the lock. 

Steam begins to creep under the edge of the door like a silent signal of the passing of time before Villanelle hears the shower shut off. It’s another ten minutes or so, not like she’s counting or anything ridiculous like that, before the door finally opens and Eve emerges with a rush of slightly damp warmth. By now she’s seen Eve in varying states of dress and undress, she’s even seen her with nothing on at all, still dripping wet as Villanelle had helped her out of that piece of black and white couture that she had spent a whole afternoon looking for, and yet she thinks this might be the most beautiful version of Eve that she’s ever seen. 

Her hands are still busy towel-drying her hair drawn down over one shoulder and her face is flushed from the heat of the water but her eyes are sharp even through the wary weight of the day. 

“Don’t say a word,” Eve mutters as she turns back towards the bathroom to dispose of the towel, her hair obviously satisfactorily dry for now. 

Villanelle’s about to argue when she takes in the full image of Eve in the skin-tight pants and loose but cropped tee and the sarcastic comment just dissipates because really, when does she have any time to make sure her body looks like that and where does she even find clothes so bad they’re capable of entirely hiding a figure as fine as the one in front of her. 

“Are they running out of fabric or something?” Eve asks sardonically, plucking at the hem of her borrowed top, the length of which comes to rest just about her hips, giving Villanelle an extraordinary view of the length of her body. She looks up, catching Villanelle’s eye as she’s in the process of opening her mouth to speak. “I said-“ Eve begins, but Villanelle cuts across her before she can finish. 

“Do you feel better?” Villanelle asks as innocently as is humanly possible, thoroughly satisfied when Eve stills in surprise, obviously expecting something completely different to come out of her mouth. 

“I do,” Eve nods, watching her carefully as though trying to find some answer for her behaviour in the visible space around her. 

“Are you sure you want to share the bed?” Villanelle asks her next, hoping to prolong the beautifully unbalanced look of confusion on Eve’s face. “Because I will be fine downstairs.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Eve shakes her head. “This is your house. We should both get as good a sleep as we can. There’s more chance of that happening here, right?” She takes a step closer to the bed. “Besides, I’m sure you could fit more than two in here and have room to spare.” 

She can tell Eve is letting her head get in the way again, so she opts for something familiar; something Eve will recognise more perhaps than this expanded version of herself. 

“Three, sure. Not a problem,” Villanelle says as she looks over the size of the bed. “But not if you want to sleep.”

Eve rolls her eyes and makes a well-practised sound of derision. “Jesus Christ, you are impossible. I don’t even want to know.”

“Sure you do,” Villanelle shrugs, making a show of averting her gaze but keeping Eve in her periphery, smiling to herself when she sees her walk back towards the bathroom but with shoulders less tense than before. 

She watches Eve look around the dark tiled bathroom obviously searching for something but obviously too stubborn to ask for whatever it is. Swinging her legs off the bed, Villanelle makes her way towards Eve now standing in front of the sink. She takes a step nearer as Eve’s eyes are downcast until she’s directly behind Eve and close enough to place one hand on the marble sink and reach down with the other towards the cupboard at the height of Eve’s thigh. 

“Here,” Villanelle says as the side of her head brushes Eve’s hip, followed by the rest of her body coming into contact with Eve’s when she starts in surprise. “Wow,” Villanelle hums, straightening up with two brand new toothbrushes in her hand, holding them out in innocent explanation. “A little jumpy, are you?” she adds with a smug grin as Eve turns, snatching one out of her hand and shoving her back in one smooth movement. 

“Jesus Christ, Villanelle,” Eve snaps, glaring at her and breathing hard. 

For a second, Villanelle is genuinely worried she might have gone a little too far but then she looks closer at the flush on Eve’s face and the slight shake of her hands. _Oh_ , Villanelle thinks. It might have been fright to begin with, but this is most definitely something closer to desire now. 

“Is that not what you were looking for,” she asks plainly, stepping back to put some small distance between them. 

“Just give me the damn toothpaste,” Eve growls, taking it from Villanelle’s open palm. She turns her back and bends over the sink, not giving Villanelle the satisfaction of another glare. 

They brush their teeth in a companionable silence that feels so stupidly and yet somehow so perfectly domestic. She watches Eve visibly relax as she slips into muscle memory, still brushing, or at least standing with her toothbrush tucked into her cheek as she paces across the spacious bathroom. 

Eve spins on her heel as Villanelle wipes a spot of toothpaste away from the corner of her mouth with the pad of her thumb. “I don’t understand,” she says looking genuinely perplexed. 

Villanelle frowns. “You don’t understand what?” 

“How this can feel so weird,” Eve laughs dryly, “and so okay at the same time.” She shakes her head, following Villanelle back into the bedroom. “How are the two of us here now, like this, and why does it feel so…”

“Normal?” Villanelle asks as she walks past Eve and towards the opposite side of the bed to the one Eve is hovering next to. 

“Yes,” Eve breathes. There’s something on her face that looks genuinely desperate for some sort of reason but honestly, Villanelle can’t answer the question any better than she can. 

What she does know to be real, even if it isn’t tangible, is this constantly insistent pull that exists between them, this thing that even now has Eve in all her uncertainty and hesitation shifting from foot to foot like every cell in her body is telling her that the distance between them, even distance this small, needs to be closed. Villanelle doesn’t believe in fate, only those too weak to move for the things that they want, who rely on predetermination to explain away their failures. It isn’t something omnipresent drawing them closer, always closer, it isn’t some force beyond their control, something stripping them of their free will. No, it’s something demonstrating their connection and the potential of it, it’s something showing them everything that could be theirs if, and only if, they have the strength to take it. 

She’s questioned many times along their journey together whether Eve truly was strong enough but the fact that she is here, alive and willing and free with trust and not violence in her eyes, the fact that even after Rome she kept searching. It is possible to need many more answers than that, particularly given their history, but honestly that, that Eve is _here_ , is all the proof she will ever need.

Despite the obvious need, she can’t give Eve answers. Nothing that isn’t a lie anyway, and she knows they are both beyond untruths now, but what she can give Eve is a place in the eye of the storm before the hounds come snapping and growling at their heels. 

_Let them come_ , she thinks fiercely, _let them try to separate us now_. There is power in their pairing; that has been made exceptionally clear by every effort in the last two years to keep them apart by everyone and anyone who has seen what they can do when they concentrate and centre their knowledge. They are a threat to the power of others and this alone intrigues her almost more than Eve herself does. Almost. 

“You need to stop thinking, Eve,” she says instead of giving false platitudes or anything deep or sincere that she knows Eve will challenge or question even more. “We don’t have to justify why anymore. We can just be.”

With that, Villanelle watches a visible weight lift off of Eve’s shoulders. She forgets sometimes, that Eve is capable of so much and yet there are so many rules and expectations that she still binds herself too. Her days of killing people for money may be behind her, but she has no intention of turning into some kind of reformed saint. She is who she is, as Eve is who she is, and if reminding Eve of that from time to time makes them both freer, then she will gladly be the one to give that power back to her. 

“Just come to bed,” Villanelle says as the touches the panel next to her side of the bed to dim the small strip of light. “You can think until we’re both exhausted tomorrow,” she adds, throwing back the cover for Eve and then rolling onto her side to face away from her in that hopes that doing so in combination with the dark of the room might be enough for Eve to understand that she’s not going to throw herself on the other woman, to kiss or kill her, the second they’re actually in bed together. 

She feels the bed dip a few seconds later, then hears the soft rustling of sheets as Eve settles in. A few seconds of silence pass before Eve speaks to her. 

“I hate how comfortable this bed is,” Eve grumbles, even though it’s clear from the just-there pleasure in her voice that she really doesn’t. 

Villanelle rolls her eyes in the dark, still facing away from Eve. “Thank you so much for the wonderful place to stay, Villanelle,” she says sarcastically. “I’m so grateful to be here in your warm, safe house in your very comfortable bed instead of in that shit hole apartment.”

Eve laughs softly under her breath, moves again, Villanelle thinks, up and onto her side, now facing her. She closes her eyes and tries to use all of her senses to pinpoint the exact position of Eve next to her. By the volume of her breathing, she’s not quite close enough that they might accidentally brush against each other, but she’s certainly not hugging the opposite side of the mattress, as far away from Villanelle as the bed will allow. 

The room is silent save the soft sounds of pre-sleep and after a while Villanelle thinks Eve might have already drifted off, but then she feels movement next to her and Eve says, “thank you, Villanelle,” so quietly that she almost wonders if the sentiment had been spoken in sleep. But then she feels Eve roll onto her back, hears her cross her arms over her chest like some kind of dignified figure carved from stone, before she stills and slowly, her breathing evens out. 

Villanelle lays awake for a long time, watching as the time crawls past midnight, and then shifts into the very early hours of the morning. She thinks that her mind should be full of racing thoughts, of different strategies, of various paths they could take across the earth; the best places to hide in, the best places to fight from, but the only thing she finds instead nestled comfortably between every shared breath is _Eve_ , and _finally_. 

The line on her stomach warms of its own accord around half-past one as it seems to want to do from time to time. Still on her back, she allows her hand to move over the curve of her ribs until her fingertips find the knotted scar. She’s tracing the line of it gently when she hears Eve’s breathing change, become lighter, and she knows that Eve is awake as certainly as she knows every part of the mark on her belly.

“Villanelle,” Eve says after the clock display ticks over to show two in the morning. 

“Eve,” she replies, splaying her fingers out over her stomach so the scar presses into the centre of her palm. 

There’s another pause as Eve finds her voice again, obviously not certain that Villanelle had been awake enough to respond. It isn’t often that she’s truly surprised but she berates herself later because of all the people who have been sharp or reckless enough to surprise her, Eve can claim that prize more than anyone else can. Whatever Villanelle is expecting her to say, be it a verbalisation of her worries or another ramble revolving around fear, fades into nonexistence when Eve does speak. 

“Why haven’t you kissed me,” Eve asks her. “Since we got ho- since we came here, I mean.”

The sarcastic retort comes easily but she bites it down because the question from Eve is deeply honest and while she’s still trying to figure out this whole genuine-emotional-response-thing she feels as though now isn’t the time for joking. 

“I didn’t want to push you,” she tells Eve. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, trust me. But I didn’t know if that was what you wanted.”

“Oh,” Eve replies. The bed moves and she feels Eve come up onto her side again, now facing her. “It would be okay, you know,” she says very quietly after a few heavy seconds pass between them.

“What would be?” Villanelle asks, almost breathless herself now. The answer is obvious but she wants, no, _needs_ , to hear Eve say it. 

“If you kissed me,” Eve answers with a hint of frustration that could be emotional or physical, Villanelle can’t quite tell, because she’s too busy rolling onto her side towards Eve, not stopping until they’re so close, painfully close, excruciatingly close, but not quite touching. 

The room is still dark but Villanelle’s eyes have long since adjusted to the lack of light well enough to be able to see Eve with sufficient clarity. It’s no substitute for the brightness of day but somehow it feels fitting that they take this next step, whatever that is, cloaked in but not obscured by shadows. 

Without speaking she reaches for Eve, her hand fitting neatly against the curve of her jaw. She stills for just a moment, long enough for Eve to breathe deeply and move towards her; it's only a fraction closer but it’s enough, it’s decisive, it’s clear. 

_Good_ , she thinks as she curves her hand around the back of Eve’s neck and leads her in, eliminating the remaining distance between them, and then, _finally_ , as their lips meet and the course of their future shifts, fixes, locks in place.

The kiss feels different to all the others, that becomes apparent almost immediately, and not only to her, Villanelle thinks when she feels the thrum of electricity move back and forward between the two of them like there’s too much power in the energy and it doesn’t want to settle; it wants to play around them instead. 

Eve is the one to deepen the kiss first, parting her lips eagerly when Villanelle’s tongue brushes hers. She urges Villanelle closer with a moan that sinks lower in tone, descending into something closer to a growl when Villanelle shifts one of her thighs and it brushes against her knee suggestively. She doesn’t press forward, parting Eve’s thighs right away, no it’s much more fun to feel the tension strung out through her entire body instead, to feel the physical toll it takes on Eve to try to recognise and process what it is that she’s feeling and what she wants next. 

Villanelle waits for Eve’s hands to find her waist and pull her closer before she allows herself to kiss Eve as deeply and desperately as she’s been dreaming of. She feels Eve shudder, feels her thighs shake when Villanelle finally rolls on top of her, presses down with her hips and curls both hands around the back of Eve’s head and pulls her so close it’s a wonder either of them can keep their hearts beating.

They’re still fully clothed and starting to overheat because of it, but Villanelle knows the warmth between her thighs isn’t only isolated to their rising body temperatures, and based on the way Eve is moving more purposefully against her, she thinks the heat she can feel against her own thigh isn’t either. Self-control seems irrelevant now but still, it’s Eve who breaks first, breathing heavily as she presses her hips up and her forehead against Villanelle’s. 

“What happens now?” she asks shakily, tilting her head and speaking against the sticky skin of Villanelle’s throat. 

“I don’t know, Eve,” Villanelle replies with as much dignity as she can summon, trying to regulate her racing heart as Eve’s lips brush over her pulse. “What do you want to happen now?”

“I’m not sure,” Eve admits, sobering somewhat. Her voice trembles a little but her hands don’t move from their place across Villanelle’s lower back and she doesn’t make any other attempt to shift or change their current position so Villanelle stays put but lifts herself up and draws back, just enough to look her in the eye.

“Well,” she says neutrally. “We can stop, or we keep kissing.”

Eve shakes her head. “No,” she says quickly, hands tightening at Villanelle’s waist. “No, I don’t want to stop, but I…don’t know what to do. Next, I mean, if that is what we’re going to-“

Villanelle leans in, presses their lips together to silence the worry spilling out like warm, red life between them. “Eve,” she says quietly, drawing back only to make the space between them painfully, tantalising and wholly _not enough_. “I have wanted you for a very long time, I have wanted to do this for a very long time, but we don’t have to do anything you don’t feel ready to.” An errant thought crosses her mind and spills from her before she can stop it. “Whatever happens, whenever it happens, I don’t want you to regret it in the morning. For both of our sakes, I want you to be sure.”

“I am sure,” Eve replies. “I'm sick of pretending that I’m not sure. I just don’t know what to do.”

She’s surprised by the conviction in Eve’s voice. It’s clear that she’s speaking for herself as much as for Villanelle, and it’s clear that she means what she’s saying too. Blinking, Villanelle realises that the shadow, the weight of expectation and morality that Eve has clung to are gone now. Left in their place is the honest, authentic, frighteningly powerful version of Eve that Villanelle has yearned to see set free. 

The confidence and bravado, the swagger that normally surrounds Eve like an aura is gone too. It was a mask, Villanelle realises, a distraction from the well-worn and faded armour lest people look too close. 

_God_ , she thinks, Eve really is dangerous, and dangerously underestimated. It takes a certain kind of skill after all to weaponize things that are actively hidden so they become more a threat to others than they are to oneself. A rare, glittering skill indeed. 

She wonders whether Eve has any idea at all just how much more lethal she will become as she steps more and more into the truest version of herself, one without limitations; much more extraordinary, how much more equal a partner, too. 

The truth of that thought settles between Villanelle’s thighs and she tenses the muscles in her jaw, in her shoulders, in the sinew laced between her ribs. _Soon_ , she tells her desire, wrapping hands tight around it to hold it in place. _Soon, but not quite yet_. 

Leaning down, Villanelle allows the warmth of her breath to lay a path for her lips as she speaks to the skin that Eve exposes for her, tipping her head back and sighing in relief and supplication, both. “If you are ready,” she says barely above a whisper. “Truly ready, Eve, then I can show you.”

“Oh, god,” Eve moans, all grace and decorum abandoned. “Yes,” she hisses as her hands reach and tangle into Villanelle’s hair, encouraging the pressure of teeth against the delicate tender skin. “Yes, Villanelle, _please_.”

With the satisfaction that comes from shattering a pane of glass with the sharp crack of a bullet, or twisting hands until her ears ring with the neat snap of bone, Villanelle bites down and the world falls apart around them. Emotion is ridiculous, useless, or so she has always thought. The sense of serene divinity and grace and anticipation that descends on her as Eve reaches for the hem of her satin nightshirt gives her enough cause to crush that between her back teeth and swallow it whole. If this is what Eve can make her feel, fully clothed, she thinks she can find a place within herself for the strange notion of feeling. 

There is so much she has yet to learn about the world, about violence, about deceit and subterfuge, but this, the soft curves of a woman’s body, this is her place to hunt, this is the thing that she knows; seduction, making someone feel at ease even though they’re in the lion's den. Eve is so much more than a meek animal caught in a well-devised trap, she is pleased to find. Eve is hungry, ravenous, thirsty enough to turn on the fellow prey she walked in with to join the lions in their feast. 

She kisses Eve back with the respect that such a boldness deserves, not bothering to hold back the intensity of her desire, of her want anymore. After all, if Eve really wants her, all of her, it won’t serve as a warning sign, it’ll be a hand stretched outwards in invitation instead. Every kiss severs another tie to the life that she had before Eve, every touch binds them more completely together. It’s relief that accompanies her moan when Eve makes it clear that the lack of skin-on-skin isn’t sufficient to sate her hunger anymore, gratification and validation too. 

“There’s no coming back from this, Eve,” Villanelle growls, eyes closed as Eve’s hands move over her stomach and brush against the scar that they left there. 

She thinks she might have dreamt about this thousands of times over as the skin knitted itself back together, and a thousand times since then, but none of it compares to the real thing. The flesh seems to ripple and quiver, almost seeming to recognise the touch of the one responsible for making it. She thinks if such a thing were possible it would glow with all the grace of a dying star. She thinks of the scar that Eve will bear somewhere on her body, realises with a hot sharp jolt that before the sun rises she’ll likely know not only the location of the mark but what it feels like under her palm, the way Eve shudders when she brushes her lips over it too. 

God, nothing is ever going to be the same after this. She thinks of birthmarks, how her brother used to tell her that they were a physical record of fatal wounds in past lives, a reminder of every different way you might have died. It’s bullshit, of course, but it makes her think of the way their marks, not matching but equally significant, bond them together, and will no matter how much distance anyone dares to attempt to put between them. “This will change everything,” she says, as much to satisfy her own need to voice the thought as to give Eve one last chance to walk away. 

Eve’s touch moves abandoning her pursuit of disrobing Villanelle for a moment, the buttons more than her single-minded consciousness can handle, the gleam in her eyes selfish as she guides Villanelle’s hands to the bottom of her own borrowed T-shirt. 

“God, can’t you feel it,” Eve says, moans, as Villanelle’s hands move over the warmth of her stomach, taking the t-shirt with them, baring the skin as they move up, up,up, taking Villanelle’s heart rate along for the ride. 

Villanelle pauses for a second to look down, to watch. She has her bottom lip between her own teeth when her palms close over the swell of Eve’s breast, but she doesn’t stop again. Her touch is firm, confident, learning. She rolls a nipple between her thumb and forefinger before she lowers her head and takes pebbled flesh in her mouth instead, tongue flicking, hands moving to Eve’s ribcage to hold her steady when she moves to the other breast. 

Before she can blink, Eve is lifting her arms and Villanelle is pulling the t-shirt up and off, throwing it roughly to the side and returning to the straining, desperate body beneath her. _Can’t you feel it,_ echoes in her head as Eve’s nails scratch against her scalp, _can’t you feel it, can’t you feel it._

“It’s already changed,” Eve growls as Villanelle moves down her stomach, fingers curling around the waistband of her pants. She lifts her hips up off the bed, the meaning, the intention behind her action as clear as day. She lifts her head to catch Villanelle’s eye, the desperation and certainty almost disarming. Almost. “There’s no coming back from this,” Eve says, the tendons in her neck straining, begging for Villanelle’s teeth. “There isn’t. From any of this. So for god's sake, Villanelle, don’t you _dare_ stop.”

It takes conscious effort to keep her head as she peels the remainder of the clothing from Eve’s body. Heaven is an illusion, heaven is for fools, heaven is inch after inch of Eve, bare and shaking beneath her, for her. Heaven is a trick for children, a lie to tether the weak to those with power, heaven is the sound that Eve makes when her hand finally slides between her thighs, when she feels the heat of her, more consuming than she had ever hoped to dream it would be. Heaven doesn’t exist, it cannot, it is a ruse, it is impossible, heaven is the shudder that she feels run through her entire body when she slides her fingers inside, fills Eve. Heaven is the thing that follows, the rumble of a storm, of the fire that consumes them both. 

When Eve’s thigh curls around her hip, holding her so close it takes all of her strength to maintain the thrust of her fingers, Villanelle remembers the first time with Anna. Bedding her had felt like a victory, like she had conquered something supposedly unconquerable, but this is different. This feels like a deep exhalation, like the first breath ever taken, the stepping off into the unknown with no certainty but the concrete stability of their connection. 

It doesn’t feel like a battle won, game over, no; this feels like a beginning. She was wrong before, earlier, with her head in Eve's hands at the long end of a fever dream, that wasn’t absolution. _No_ , she thinks, breathing deeply and leaning into the fierce heat of Eve’s body. I think we all have a monster inside of us. We are the same. _No_ , she thinks. That wasn’t it. This, _this_ is absolution. 

  
  


.

  
  


viii.

(part three)

**There, the divine.**

_Eve_

  
  


The sound that Villanelle makes when she finally sees the scar, her scar, on Eve’s back is ethereal, almost religious, and if Eve wasn’t already on her hands and knees, she knows her weight would have buckled under her at hearing it. She feels Villanelle lower herself, flattening herself against Eve’s body, her hips fitting neatly against Eve’s backside before gentle fingertips run over the neat line reverently. 

“I am sorry, you know,” Villanelle tells her quietly, lips brushing over the now-healed but still tender scar. “I wasn’t at the time, or afterwards, but I am now.”

“I know,” Eve says as Villanelle’s hand threads around her waist, settling between her thighs and moving without hesitation into the slick heat. “I was angry then,” Eve adds, because it needs to be said. “But it’s different now.” 

“I thought that you would hate me forever after Rome. Even in death,” Villanelle kisses the syllables between her shoulder blades as her fingers move with much less tenderness. 

“Hate isn’t that simple,” Eve says amongst urgent breaths. She lowers her head, presses it against her forearms, gasps when she feels the stretch of a third finger. 

“Do you still?” Villanelle asks, slowing, resting her chin alongside the line of Eve’s spine. “Hate me?” she clarifies, albeit unnecessarily. “Hate some part of me?” 

By god, she should. Every single living cell in her body knows that she should. She has enough pain infused in her soul alone to hate Villanelle several lifetimes over without even taking into account how much hurt she has caused other people… and yet… and _yet_ …

Even if the line between hate and desire weren’t so ridiculously thin, even if she could justify everything that Villanelle has done to people in her name, that _she_ has done to people in Villanelle’s name, how can she when everything has brought them here, and a single changed step might have taken them elsewhere? They’re not mutually exclusive, but she doesn’t regret a goddamn thing, and she stopped hating Villanelle a long time ago, wonders if she ever did or she only ever hated all the things she represented that Eve thought she couldn’t be. 

“No,” Eve says, breathes, moans as she reaches backwards and curls her hand around Villanelle’s thigh. “I don’t.” Her fingertips press hard into the firm muscle and she wishes distantly she could see it, could judge whether the grip was hard enough to bruise. She flexes anyway, feels gratified when Villanelle rewards her with a quicker pace that makes her ache.

The exhalation feels like the sigh against her cheek had in the ballroom. How could that have been in this lifetime, Eve thinks to herself. How could all this change fit in so little an amount of time? Niko always used to tell her she felt like someone who had seen hundreds of years pass, bothered but so little, removed from so much. He had never said it but she knows he always thought it wasn’t normal, was unnatural, inhuman, frightening. She thinks of the dross hum that her life had been before, interspersed by the flashes of colour, of red, red, red, of beautiful warm violence nestled in case files she should never have been able to pry open with greedy fingers in the middle of the night when the office was empty and Elena was looking the other way. She thinks of everything it has been since she had looked up onto a mirror and saw herself for the very first time reflected in someone else’s eyes. Knows, gladly, gratefully, that she will never know the lifeless tone again, not as long as she and Villanelle are together, refusing to sever the barbed wire that tethers them to one another. She laughs silently at the irony that death has brought her to life. 

“It’s beautiful, Eve,” Villanelle whispers against the shell of her ear as her breasts press against Eve’s scar, the two of them almost heart to heart. 

She half expects this to have been harder, than there might have been more hurdles to cross, that Villanelle might have demanded more of her, made her beg, or brought her to the edge over and over again until frustration overwhelmed them both, but this, her acceptance, just her, seems to have been enough. Her thighs start to shake, her heartbeat almost quick enough to cause it to falter, and instead of teasing or stopping Villanelle bears down and gives, body and soul and pleasure, she gives Eve everything. 

“Beautiful,” Villanelle purrs as the strength of Eve’s arms fail her and she’s caught from falling by a strong arm around her waist, pulling her in closer, urging her back onto waiting fingers. “So, so beautiful.” Surely this will kill her, Eve thinks desperately as the wave of ecstasy rises up before her, the crest breaking so far above her and so quickly that she can’t find her breath. Surely this will drown her. Villanelle is warm, her presence, grounding, spectacular, more dangerous than the wave could ever be. 

Her voice is what tips Eve finally, finally over the edge. Whispered as though in confession. “Just like you.” 

  
  


.

  
  


The room is quiet now but the heat of their coupling is yet to fade. Limbs and naked flesh all irrevocably joined contribute to the sheen of sweat Eve can feel between her breasts but she can’t bring herself to move. 

In her dreams, Villanelle had been rough when she’d taken her for the first time. She had been fury and hunger, devoid of softness, of intimacy. It hadn’t been an act of violence, but the summary wouldn’t have been far from it. It makes her realise how much she still has to learn about the woman whose slow, steady breathing denotes sleep because the reality couldn’t have been further from her imagined fantasy, and she had played that scenario over in her mind's eye more than once. She’s never thought of Villanelle, or Oksana either for that matter, as one-dimensional but there’s far more to her than she had ever thought possible. 

Even at rest, Villanelle looks strong. Her muscles tense occasionally in the automatic movement of sleep and her breathing is practised and rhythmic, like an athlete. She could even look innocent if the one looking were naive enough to presume this silent peace for what Eve knows to be predatory grace. 

So much she doesn’t know, and yet, so much that she does now that she didn’t at the turn of the previous day. Eve runs her hand along bare flesh, bites her lip when she watches it react. Even in sleep, it seems, Villanelle will respond, will meet her. 

There are things she will never ask, but that doesn’t stop Eve thinking of them regardless. She wonders whether Villanelle had to nurture darkness, hold it close like a helpless kitten. Or did it grow like a swollen river in a thunderstorm, out of control, far bigger than she was, building, building until it found an outlet? 

_No_ , she thinks as she falls asleep with Villanelle’s arm tight around her waist, thinking back to a question posed on a bridge _before_. Villanelle isn’t a monster. She’s not some broken, ruined thing. She’s the unstoppable force. Nemesis of inertia. She’s human and fallible and beautifully dangerous. 

_She's the storm_ , Eve thinks as she closes her eyes to the soft inhale of Villanelle’s breath at her back. _She’s the end of the world_. 

.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://tigerlo.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/tigerlo_) etc. 


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